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HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



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HOME AND WORLD SERIES 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



A GEOGRAPHICAL READER 



BY 



JAMES FKANKLIN CHAMBEELAIN, Ed.B., S.B. 

DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNLA. 

AUTHOR OF "how WE ARE FED," "HOW WE ARE CLOTHED," 

AND "FIELD AND LABORATORY EXERCISES IN 

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY " 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1906 

AU rights reserved 



UAFTARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies ReceivMl 

FEB 1 1906 
n Copyright Efrtry . 

^LASS CL' XXc MO. 

/ 3 7 ^Cf 

' COPY B. 






CoPVPaGiiT, 1900, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1906. 



Nortoooti }3regs 

J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



PREFACE 

The most marked tendency in the educational 
movement of to-day is the effort to make the 
experience and the power gained within the 
school fit into and supplement the life with- 
out. Education has been, and is, too largely 
a process of dealing with abstractions, with 
expression rather than with experience. By a 
strange perversity we have insisted upon pre- 
senting to the child that which is distant in 
place and time, and we have then wondered 
why he was so ignorant both of that and of 
the life about him. 

Education is the application and the enlarge- 
ment of experience, resulting in the develop- 
ment of the individual. Geography is one of 
the important factors in education. All real 
knowledge of geography is based upon expe- 
riences derived through study of the home 
surroundings and relations. To-day, as never 



VI PREFACE 

before, the home and the world, the individual 
and the millions of mankind, are bound to- 
gether by ties as strong as chains of steel, yet 
as sensitive as nerves. 

In the teaching of geography, we should help 
the child to grasp, as far as he is capable, 
those physical and human conditions by means 
of which the life about him, his life, is anain- 
tained. This involves the presentation of con- 
ditions and peoples remote from him, it is 
true ; but whatever line may be followed, the 
pupil soon becomes aware that the study of 
the subject begins and ends in the home, while 
it encompasses the world. This furnishes the 
only real foundation for all later study of 
geography. 

Since much of the thought and activity of 
every individual and nation is centered about 
food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and com- 
munication, these should be made the corner 
stones of home geography. But while these 
are the central thoughts, the countless oppor- 
tunities which they present to teach facts and 
truths aside from them should be seized by the 



PREFACE vii 

fceaclier. Indeed, if this be not done, the work 
falls far short of its purpose. 

Much of man's progress has grown out of 
cooperation and specialization, and his present 
daily life is, in large measure, dependent upon 
them. This great truth, applicable to the 
family, the community, the school, the world, 
is not sufficiently developed by teachers and 
parents. In the abstract it means nothing to 
the child, but in this work he is repeatedly 
brought face to face with it, in ways that show 
clearly how his own welfare and happiness de- 
pend ujDon the labor and the thought of others, 
and how he, in turn, should contribute to the 
benefit of those about him. 

Maps and globes should be constantly used 
by teacher and pupils. All places mentioned 
should be definitely located and routes of travel 
traced. The pupil should see the position of 
places with reference to his home, and should 
have some idea of the time required to reach 
them. 

While the books of this series are called 
geographical readers, they are calculated to 



viii PREFACE 

perform a much, larger function than do sup- 
plementary books. Where the plan here pre- 
sented is followed, lessons will be assigned and 
the books used as regular texts. In the school 
with which the author is connected this has 
been done for several years. 

More and more we are realizing the value of 
good illustrations in our schoolbooks. In the 
preparation of this volume no effort has been 
spared to secure pictures which actually illus- 
trate the work undertaken. It remains for the 
teacher to use them in the most effective 
manner. 

I take this opportunity of expressing my 
indebtedness to Miss Kathrine Lois Scobey of 
Dearborn Seminary, Chicago, who read the 
entire manuscript and furnished many valuable 
suggestions. 

Trusting that this little book may be of real 
service in the great field of education, I submit 
it to my fellow-teachers. 

JAMES FRANKLIN CHAMBERLAIN. 

Los Angeles, 
California. 



CONTENTS 











PAGE 


Introduction 






1 


Sheltered by Snow 








. 12 


Homes in Cliffs .... 








. 20 


A Pueblo Home .... 








. 24: 


Indian Homes 








. 32 


The Dwellings of the Dwarfs . 








. 42 


Where the Chrysanthemum Grows 








. 47 


A Visit to China .... 








59 


Filipino Houses .... 








. 67 


In the Land of Cocoanuts . 








. 76 


Life in a Log House 








82 


Lumbering . . , . . 








89 


How Bricks are Made . 








110 


Houses built of Stone . 








124 


Artificial Stone .... 








139 


Xails 








143 


Glass 








146 


Fire and its Uses .... 








150 


How Coal is Made and Mined . 
Light 








157 

168 


Petroleum , 








178 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

INTRODUCTION 

This afternoon I stood in front of a large 
schoolhouse, and watched the children march 
out. Down the stairs and out into the yard they 
came keeping time to music. As they passed 
through the gates they began to separate, each 
going to a different place, yet each going 
home. 

About five or six o'clock each evening one may 
see a stream of men and women coming from 
the mills, factories, and business houses of a 
great city. . The work of the day is over, and 
each of the workers is going home. 

People often leave their homes to go to the 
seashore, to some lake, to the woods, or to the 
mountains, for a vacation , Some cross the ocean 
and travel in foreign lands. It is pleasant to 



2 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

watch the great blue waves with their shaggy- 
crests of white, rush against the rocks and dash 
themselves into spray. To sit beside some 
laughing stream, and watch the fish as they play 
in the clear, deep pools, brings rest and joy. 
A visit to other coimtries is full of delight. But 
no matter where we may go; no matter how 
much we may enjoy our visits and v.acation 
trips, we are always glad to return to our 
homes. 

What is this home of which we each are 
so fond? It is a house, you answer. Yes, 
it is a house. It is a place where we are 
sheltered from the winter's cold, the summer's 
heat, and storms of all kinds. Here we are 
provided with food ; and here we sleep at night. 
Home, then, is the place to which we go for 
food, shelter, and rest. But it is much more 
than this. All of these things are provided in 
hotels and boarding houses, but we do not 
think of these places as homes. 

The home is the place of all the world most 
dear to us. Here we enjoy the love of mother, 
father, and all of the members of the family, and 



INTRODUCTION 3 

give ours in return. Here the thoughts, the 
words, and the actions are those of love. The 
streets, the parks, the cars, the schools are for 
all. The home is for the family. 




^'^^.^ 



Fig. 1. — A Bird Home. 

Many animals as well as people have homes. 
Sometimes animals occupy the same house for 
several years; and sometimes they use it for 
but one season. Animals often show much skill 
in building their houses. 

Here is a bird home. If you wish to visit it, 
you will have to use a ladder or else climb the 



4 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

tree. The owners reach their home much more 
easily. The house is made of twigs, and is Hned 
with hair and bits of thread. How patiently 
the parents worked in building this home ! In it 
the baby birds eat, sleep, and grow, while they 
are rocked by the breezes. 

Squirrels build summer homes of leaves and 
twigs high up in the tree tops. In winter they 
live in houses in the hollows of the trees. Dur- 
ing the bright autumn days the squirrels carry 
nuts and acorns to these snug homes. 

The muskrat builds a winter home of coarse 
grass and reeds. It is in a marsh or by the edge 
of a lake or stream. The beaver carries sticks, 
stones, and quantities of mud out of which he 
builds his lodge. 

Bees and ants are wonderful builders. They 
live in communities rather than in families. 
They are very industrious. Have you ever 
watched ants as they worked? 

The homes of animals differ greatly. Some 
are in the ground, some are on the ground, and 
some are far above the ground. They are made 
'of different materials and in different ways. 







Pig. 2. — a Beaver Lodge. 



INTRODUCTIOX 7 

The homes of people differ very much also. 
You know that the homes in your neighborhood 
differ in appearance. Some are large, and some 
are small. Some are built of wood, some of 
brick, and others of stone. These are not the 




Fig. 3. — Hawaiian Grass House. 

only materials used. Some houses are made 
of grass ; some are made of skins ; some are 
made of mud. The Eskimo builds his house of 
snow and ice. 

The material of which a house is built depends 
upon climate, upon what can be obtained to 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 





^..^11 


•^ 









fiG. 4. — Laplander's Winter Home. 

build with, and upon the skill of the builders. 

Some people, like animals, wander about a great 

deal in search of 
food and water for 
themselves or for 
their flocks. Natu- 
rally such people 
cannot have per- 
manent homes. 

Fig. 5. — Hut on the Kongo River. Xhc home of the 

Indian is often carried from place to place. 




IXTRODUCTIOX 



9 



There is a difference between country homes 
and city homes. In the country each family 
has its own house, usually made of wood. In a 
great city there are many buildings known as 
tenement or apartment houses. In one of these 




Fig. 6. — A Home in the Country. 

houses there may be fifty families. Each family 
rents a few rooms from the owner. Of course 
there are many city people who own their homes. 
Brick and stone are used a great deal in cities 
because of the danger from fire. 



10 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



You know that food and clothing are necessi- 
ties of Hfe. In most parts of the world shelter 
is also a necessity. In some parts each man 
makes the house for his family. Did the people 
in your neighborhood make their own houses? 




Fig. 7. — An Apartment House in New York City. 



Of what are they made ? Where did the materials 
of which they are made come from ? 

Let us take a journey together, and visit homes 
in our own, and in other countries. We shall learn 
how these houses are made, and of what they 



INTRODUCTION 11 

are constructed. We shall also become some- 
what acquainted with the people who live in 
them^ and with the countries in which we 
travel. 



SHELTERED BY SNOW 

You have probably played in the snow many 
times. Perhaps you have made forts of snow, 
and dug caves in some great white drift. ~ I am 
sure, however, that you would never think of 
making a house of snow to serve as your home 
during the long, cold winter. 

People do make houses of snow, and they keep 
warm in them, too. These people are our Eskimo 
friends, who live in the far northland. There 
are no forests there, for it is too cold for trees 
to grow. For many weeks during the winter 
the sun does not shine, for there is one long, 
unbroken night. 

When the Eskimo gets ready to build his 
winter home or igloo, he selects a place where the 
snow is deep and firmly packed. With a long 
knife of bone he cuts a great block from the 
snow, and throws it to one side. He then stands 
in the hole thus made, and cuts out other blocks. 

12 



SHELTERED BY SXOW 



13 



The blocks are from eight to ten inches in thick- 
ness, about two feet wide, and perhaps two 
and one-half feet in length. These are placed 
on the snow, end to end, forming a circle. 




Fig. 8. — Building Igloos. 
From the Report of the National JIuseitm, 1901. 

A second row of blocks is placed upon the first, 
and so on, each circle being smaller than the 
one below it. At last only one great block is 
needed to finish the igloo. Putting this last one 
on is a little like putting a stopper in a bottle. 
You know that the bricks in a wall are laid so 
that the joints, as they come together, do not 
form a line. The Eskimo lays his bricks of snow 
in the same way. 



14 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

When the igloo is finished, it looks like a great 
white bowl turned upside down. The little 
crevices between the blocks are carefully filled 
with snow, for the breath of the frost king is 
bitter cold; and it must not be allowed to enter. 

But the house is not finished when the walls 
have been laid. Neither doors nor windows have 
yet been constructed. When the Eskimo wishes 
to make a door, he cuts an opening underneath 
the lowest layer of blocks. Then he makes a 
burrow or tunnel in the snow for some distance. 
This is the entrance to the house. Skins or 
blocks of snow are placed before the openings to 
keep out the cold. The window is a cake of clear 
ice set in the wall. 

Your home has several rooms. Perhaps it is 
more than one story high. An Eskimo house 
consists of but one room. There is very little 
furniture in the house, but of course there is a 
bed. What do you suppose, it is made of? 
Snow! 

At one side of the igloo the snow is packed 
hard, and upon this, moss, grass, and twigs are 
placed when they can be obtained. Over these, 



SHELTERED BY SNOW 15 

heavy skins are laid, and the softer skins and 
furs that serve as bedclothes are spread on top. 
Another thing that would interest you very 
much is the stove. It is not purchased at a 
store, but like nearly everything else that the 




Fig. 9. — An Eskimo Home. 

Eskimo people use, is made by their own hands. 
The stove is nothing but a stone that has been 
hollowed out. It is both a stove and a lamp. 
Some whale oil and a wick of moss complete it. 
I will tell you more about it in another place. 



16 HOW WE arp: sheltered 

The heat from this lamp keeps the house quite 
warm when the entrance is closed. Sometimes 
it is so warm in the igloo that water drips from 
the ceiling of snow. When it is very cold the 
moisture from the breath of the people collects 
on the ceiling, forming beautiful crystals which 
sparkle like jewels in the light. 

On the walls are bear, seal, and walrus skins. 
Some articles of clothing, bows and arrows, 
harpoons, knives, cups, and pails are to be 
seen. The cups and pails are made of seal- 
skin. I am afraid that you would not think 
the igloo a very comfortable home. The '^chil- 
dren of the cold'^ know of no other kind of 
home ; and they are quite happy in it. They 
know nothing of cakes, pies, and other dainties 
with which you are familiar. They are as 
delighted with pieces of fat from the seal, rein- 
deer, or walrus as you are with a chocolate cream. 
Often their food is eaten raw. Sometimes they 
are so hungry that they are glad to eat bits of 
the skins of these animals. 

Although the winters are very long and cold, 
the Eskimos do not remain indoors all of the 



SHELTERED BY SNOW 17 

time. The men must go in search of food, and 
sometimes the women go with them. The chil- 
dren have great sport riding on their sleds which 
are drawn by dogs. The sleds are called kamu- 
tees, and the dogs mikies. When at last the winter 
is over and spring has returned to the north- 
land the igloo begins to melt. The walls must 
be patched up for a short time, but soon the house 
has to be given up entirely. 

Now the tupec or tent must be built. This is 
the summer home, and is made of the skins of 
the walrus and the seal. A number of these 
skins are sewed together. The tent poles are 
the long bones of the walrus and whale. 

During the summer the Eskimo people move 
about a great deal. This is the season when 
most of the hunting and fishing is done: The 
snow and ice have melted and the boats can be 
used. The boats are made of skins, and have 
ribs of bone. The boat used by the men when 
hunting the seal is small and light. It carries 
but one person, and is called a kayak. There are 
larger boats, known as umiaks, in which the 
family sometimes move from place to place. 



18 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



Even in Eskimo land there is some grass in 
smnmer. Mosses and a few flowers may be 
seen. Birds build their nests in sheltered places 
among the rocks and raise their families. The 
children enjoy the summer very much. They 
have plenty of time to play, and they also hunt 







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Fig. 10. — The Tupec. 



for eggs and thus help to supply the family with i 
food. They gather moss and roll it into large 
strings to be used as wicks in the stone lamps. | 
A supply of this moss must be gathered during ' 
the summer. Why? i 

There are Eskimos on the west and the east ' 



SHELTERED BY SNOW 19 

coasts of Greenland, in the region around Hudson 
Bay and in Alaska. Find these regions on your 
map. The homes differ in the different sections. 
In some places the winter home is made of stones 
and earth. In the places which the white men 
have visited; a good deal of wood is used in 
building. In these homes are found many 
things, such as cloth, needles, thread, knives, 
guns, and dishes which the Eskimos have ob- 
tained from their white visitors. 

There is very much more to be told about these 
northern neighbors of ours, but I am sure that 
you now feel somewhat acquainted with them. 
You have many things which the children of 
the snow do not have, but they would be no 
more contented in your home than you would 
be in theirs. 



HOMES IN CLIFFS 

In the southwestern part of our country are 
to be seen some of the most interesting houses 
in the world. I have called them houses, but 
they are little more than niches in cliffs oh moun- 
tain side or canon wall^ and so they come to be 
called '^ Cliff Dwellings/' and the people who 
once lived in them, ''Cliff Dwellers.'' Although 
the people who inhabited these deserted homes 
have long since passed away, their descendants 
still dwell in that thirsty land, in homes almost 
as wonderful as those of their ancestors. 

Rock is often found in layers or strata, like the 
leaves in a book, only, of course, many times 
thicker. Along a mountain or canon side, the 
edges of many strata are frequently exposed to 
the weather, and some wear away much more 
rapidly than do others. In the spaces left by 
the wearing away of the softer rock, the Cliff 
Dwellers made their homes. 

20 



HOMES IN CLIFFS 21 

I once visited one of their silent villages. It 
consists of three stories of rooms perched on the 
edge of a cafion. In front is a ledge but a few 
feet in width, and when I dropped a stone over 
it; down it plunged farther than it would if it 
had been dropped from the top of the highest 
building in New York City. Think of the dark- 
skinned babies who once toddled about these 
narrow front yards, without wall or fence between 
them and this great chasm. 

There was no one to greet me as I entered the 
empty rooms. I was obhged to stoop a httle, 
for the ceiling was low. The height of the rooms 
depended upon the thickness of the layer of rock 
that once occupied the space. There was not 
much building to be done in making a cliff dwell- 
ing^ for the roof and rear wall were provided 
by nature. A wall of rough stones plastered 
over separated the rooms, which were smaller 
than ordinary bedrooms in our homes. 

Outside, the yellow sunlight fell upon the 
rocks, and sifted between the branches of the 
tall pines, but these houses of stone were gloomy, 
for little sunshine could enter them. There 



22 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



were no windows, and the single entrance to each 
house was small, so that enemies would not find 
it easy to enter. 

House cleaning had not occurred here for a 
long time, for there were several inches of sand 




Fig. 11. — a Cliff Dwelling. 

on the floor. I dug into this sand, and found 
bits of pottery, and some dried and shrunken 
corncobs. Do you wonder how the cobs came 
to be there? The people cultivated fields of 
corn on the lowlands, and ground the kernels 
between stones. The stove was a hole in the 
floor, and the chimney an opening in the roof. 



HOMES IN CLIFFS 28 

As I looked across the deep, wide canon at my 
feet, I could see on the farther side another row 
of cliff dwellings exactly like those I was visit- 
ing. I could almost fancy that I saw dark figures 
moving to and fro, cultivating the little fields 
of corn far below, and patient women slowly 
toiling up a flight of steep steps, cut in the face 
of the cliff, to the houses far above. 



A PUEBLO HOME 

I 
Little Kopeli is a child of the desert. He i 

has never seen a train of cars^ a street car, or | 

an electric hght. He knows nothing of the I 

telegraph or the telephone, and he has never I 

ridden on a bicycle, or in an automobile. 

Cool, shady woods and soft, green meadows 
are not seen where Kopeli lives, for it is a land 
of little rain. Most of the scanty vegetation is 
quite different from that with which you are 
familiar. A curious plant often found in this 
country is the cactus. Do not touch it, for it 
is covered with sharp spines. See how thick 
and leathery the leaves are. This helps it to 
live in a dry climate. It bears a fruit which is 
yellow when ripe. Kopeli has often eaten it, 
but you would not think it very good. 

This desert region of which I have spoken is 
in the southwestern part of our country. Most 
of the people who live there are Indians who are 

24 










Fig. 12. — A Cactus. 



A PUEBLO HOME 27 

called Pueblos. Pueblo means village, so I 
hardly need tell you that these people live in 
villages. Generally we find but one family of 
Indians in a house, but this is not the case with 
the Pueblos, for a whole village may consist of 
but three or four dwellings. The Pueblos are 
the descendants of the Chff Dwellers of whom 
I have told you, and nearly all of them live in 
New Mexico. 

When the father of Kopeli wanted to build a 
house, he did not go to a carpenter, but, with 
the help of his wife and neighbors, did the work 
himself. Before beginning the dwelling, however, 
he went to the chief of the village. The chief 
took four eagle feathers, sprinkled them with 
meal, and blessed them. Folding the feathers 
carefully under his blanket, Kopeli 's father carried 
them to the spot where the house was to stand. 
With reverent hands he placed a feather at each 
corner, covering it with a stone. There were other 
ceremonies connected with the building of the 
house. One of the prettiest was the singing of 
songs to the sun. 

Strange as it may seem, the Pueblo mothers 



28 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

do much of the work of building their houses. 
The houses, and all that they contain, belong 
to the women instead of to the men. Kopeli 
watched while stones were collected, and built 
into the walls of the house, which were then given 
a coating of plaster made of mud and water. 
The floor was made of the flat stones, over which 
a coating of this same plaster was laid. 

From the mountains the men brought long 
poles about six inches in diameter. These they 
placed across the top of- the walls. Kopeli's 
mother and the other women placed willow 
branches upon the roof poles. Over these they 
placed grass and twigs, and then a coating of 
mud. The roof, like all of the others in the 
village, was nearly fiat. 

In one corner of the house a fireplace and a 
chimney were built, and around the walls some 
rough benches were placed. The house had 
two small windows of glass, but in earlier times 
the people used thin pieces of a translucent stone. 

The Pueblos are fond of bread, so the mealing 
stones were not forgotten. These stones are 
used for grinding the grain, and they take the 



A PUEBLO HOME. 



29 



place of flour mills. They are smooth and flat, 
and are placed on the floor along one side of the 
room. Kopeli's mother, sitting on the floor, 
grinds the corn between two of them. If she 



3^ 




Fig. 13. — A Pueblo Dwelling. 

wants very fine flour, she uses the smoothest 
stones; if coarser flour, the rougher ones. 

Each house has its loom on which blankets 
and clothing are made. The weaving is quite 
commonly done by the men. They raise their 
own sheep and cotton, and they dye the yarn 
bright colors. 



30 HOW. WE ARE SHELTERED 

As I have said, a Pueblo village sometimes 
consists of but three or four houses, each of 
which may contain two or three hundred rooms. 
The pueblo of Pecos, New Mexico, has one house 
in which there are nearly six hundred rooms. 
Some houses are but one story high, while others 
are five or six. 

You must not suppose that these large houses 
are built in a few weeks or months as our houses 
are. They are built piecemeal, and are added 
to from generation to generation. When the 
houses are more than one story high, they are 
built in terraces, the roof of the first story form- 
ing the front yard of the second, and so on. 
Ladders are often used to climb from one story 
to another. 

There is little in a Pueblo house to make it 
comfortable or beautiful. There are no couches, , 
carpets, curtains, dressers, pictures, pipes for 
hot and cold water, gas or electric fixtures. All 
of the water used in the village is carried by the ■ 
women, from a stream some distance away, in 
earthen jars or baskets lined with clay. In 
spite of this lack of conveniences, Kopeli is 
happy in his home. 



A PUEBLO HOME 31 

The Pueblos are farmers. They raise corn, 
beans, red peppers, squashes, melons, peaches, 
tobacco, and cotton. They dig ditches from 
the streams to their gardens, and so water their 
crops. This is called irrigating. In the autumn, 
strings of shced squashes, pumpkins, and peaches 
may be seen drying on the roofs of the houses. 

Of course the crops could not be raised without 
rain, and these people have some strange cere- 
monies which they seem to believe will cause 
rain to fall upon the thirsty soil. One of these 
is known as the snake-dance. Bands of nearly 
naked men dance to and fro, carrying about their 
arms and necks, and even in their mouths, deadly 
rattlesnakes. The ceremony is a religious one, 
and it means a great deal to these people. 

We must bid good-by to little Kopeli, but we 
shall not forget him, nor his strange home perched 
upon the rocks in New Mexico. 



INDIAN HOMES 

When Columbus discovered America, he found 
the land in the possession of a race of men whom 
he called Indians. Columbus supposed that the 
country upon whose shore he had landed was 
India, so you see why he named the people In- 
dians. 

Indians used to live in all parts of both South 
and North America. They roamed over the 
land upon which Boston, New York, Chicago, 
and other large cities now stand, and their 
camp fires gleamed beside every lake and stream. 
Perhaps your own front yard was once chosen by 
some squaw as a good place on which to erect 
a wigwam for her papooses. 

There were many wars between the white men 
and the Indians, but in the end the Indians were 
always defeated. To-day most of the Indians 
of North America live in the West on reserva- 
tions. A reservation is a tract of land set apart 

32 



INDIAN HOMES • 33 

by the government for the use of the Redmen. 
There are many different tribes of Indians, and 
they build somewhat different styles of houses. 
Many have fashioned their homes after those 
of the white people. 

The Indians have always been great hunters. 
In the early days they did little besides hunting, 
fishing, and fighting. As meat was their chief 
food it was necessary to follow the great herds 
of buffalo, elk, and other animals from place to 
place. The ponies, too, needed new pasture 
ground from time to time. Because of this, the 
people did not build permanent dwellings as we 
do, but rather houses that could be easily and 
quickly constructed. Poles, skins, bark, leaves, 
grass, and even dirt were used. Often the house 
was carried or dragged by ponies from place to 
place to save building a new one each time they 
moved. 

For their homes Indians have many names, 
such as lodge, wigwam, tepee, wicky-up, hogan, 
and kan. By the Indians who five on the plains, 
the house is often called a tejpee. As you see 
by the picture it is cone shaped. In the early 



34 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



days it was covered with buffalo skin. Upon it 
were paintings in bright colors representing 
battles or* hunting scenes. To-day the covering 
is of cloth. Do you know why? ^ 




Fig. 14. — A Tepee. 
From the Report of the National Museum, 1901. 

The frame of the tepee is of poles twelve to 
sixteen feet in length. Notice that they are 
tied together at the top and spread out at the 
bottom. The cloth is sewed in strips, and placed 
over the frame. The door, you see, is like the 
flap of a tent. 



IXDIAX HOMES 35 

If you could see a house being set up, you 
would be surprised to see that the Indian women, 
who are called squaws, do all of the work. 
They spread cloth on the ground where the 
tepee is to stand. Then they tie three of the 
poles together at their small ends, using thongs 
for the purpose. A minute more and the poles 
are pushed under the cloth and through the 
opening at the top. You would know this 
was not the first tepee that the squaws had set 
up, or they could not so easily lift the house 
to its place. Look how they spread the poles 
far apart at the bottom. One by one the 
other poles are fastened in place. Tap ! Tap ! 
Tap ! The squaws are driving a few pegs into 
the ground, fastening the tepee at the bottom; 
and now the work is finished, and the family 
can move in. 

You notice that the cloth does not come to- 
gether at the top of the tepee. The opening takes 
the place of a chimney. A fire is built on the 
ground in the middle of the house. A kettle is 
hung over the fire, and here the cooking is 
done. Around the edge of the tent are skins 



36 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

and blankets upon which the members of the 
family sleep. 

Here are some houses made by the Wichita 
Indians. The one on the left looks like a pile 
of hay or an old-fashioned beehive. At the 
right are two workmen building a house. m 










^lim&^'^i 



Fig. 15. — Wichita Indians building a House. 

From the Report of the National Museum, 1901. 

They select poles and push their large ends 
firmly into the ground. They then tie the 
ends together at the top, as you see. Now 
smaller poles are bound to these horizontally, 
forming circles like the hoops on a barrel. Next 
wisps of grass are woven over the framework, 
and the house is complete. 



\ 



INDIAN HOMES 37 

This is the home of a family of Navajo Indians. 
The part at the right is called the hogan. It 
is a great mound of earth placed over a frame- 
work of poles. Underneath the dirt is a 
layer of bark and weeds to keep it from falling 
through into the house. You can see the hole 




Fig. 16. — Navajo Hogan and Ramada. 

at the top which serves as a chimney. How 
would you like to live in such a house? 

Adjoining the hogan is a summer house. This 
is called the ramada. It is covered with boughs 
and grass, and serves to keep off the bright sun- 
shine. 

In CaHfornia; Utah, and Nevada hve the Digger 



38 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



Indians. They received this name because they 
dig roots from the earth, and use them in various 
ways. 





'-^^^^^j. 


■j 


S^^)''^ 




^■, 


wj^^K^^Wi 


rmm^^^^K^ 


^ '■'• 'fl 


^m 


MH 


k - J 


W\ 


if If l^^^^^l 


IP^'^ii '^ 


If Ji 


w^^^^^^^^ 


"'-" '-'^ 




^M^^^-afcJ 


""> v\^ 



Fig. 17. — An Apache "Kan," or House. 



The chief food of the Diggers is acorns. They 
make long trips across the mountains in search 
of these, carrying them home in baskets such 
as you see in the picture. Then the women 
grind them in mortars of stone, and bake a 
sort of bread from the flour. 




Fig. 18. — Home of a Family of Digger Indians. 



IXDIAX HOMES 41 

The home, as you see, is made of rushes. They 
are bound together, and fastened to a frame- 
work of poles. Just think of the difference 
between this house and the one in which you 
hve. 



THE DWELLINGS OF THE DWARFS 

Far off in the central part of iVfrica there are 
great dark forests. The trees are so thick, and 
their branches are so closely woven together, 
that little sunshine finds its way to the ground. 
In fact it is almost like twilight in these forests 
all day long. 

It is very difficult to journey through this 
region. Hanging from the trees are rope-like 
plants called lianas, while vines and creepers 
entangle the feet of the traveler, and fallen 
trees block his way. Most of the paths belong 
not to 7nen but to animals. Some of them were 
made by the feet of elephants. , 

Of course we know that there are no such 
things as sprites, gohlins, and brownies, yet in 
these gloomy forests there is a race of people so 
small, and so full of pranks, as almost to make 
us believe in them. These little creatures are 
called Pygmies. When full grown, they average 

42 



THE DWELLINGS OF THE DWARFS 43 

about four and one-half feet in height, or about 
as tall as a ten-year-old boy. Although they 
belong to the Negro race, some of them are 
reddish brown in color. 

The Pygmies are real hunters, and do not till 
the soil at all. Their weapons are bows and 
arrows, spears, and knives. The arrows are 
generally poisoned. So skillful and so brave 
are these little people that they kill the largest 
animals, even the elephant. 

The Dwarfs usually live close to some tribe of 
larger Negroes, who have banana plantations 
and fields of sweet potatoes. The Pygmies are 
very fond of these things. Sometimes they ex- 
change meat, skins, ivory, and feathers for them, 
and at other times they help themselves by night. 
If their larger neighbors take this good-naturedly, 
the little people will leave presents for them, 
pull the weeds from the plantations, and kill the 
animals that would destroy the crops while the 
owners are sound asleep. Are they not like 
the brownies? 

It is not an easy matter to visit these httle 
creatures, for although they are brave and even 



44 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

cruel^ they are also very shy. Generally they 
will not allow white men to see them unless the 
larger Negroes tell them that they will not be 
harmed. 

The Pygmies have no dogs, horses, cattle, or 
domestic animals of any sort. They wear but lit- 
tle clothing, and their homes are very simple. Al- 
though they live in villages, you might pass very 
close to one of them, and not know it, for the 
buildings are very low. There are no chimneys 
rising above them, and there are no stores, mills, 
or factories. The homes are arranged in a 
circle, that of the chief being in the center. 

When the Dwarfs wish to build a house, they 
cut a number of light poles, and bending each 
into the form of an arch, push the ends firmly 
into the ground. These form the frame of the 
building. Next, grasses and broad leaves are 
woven between the poles, forming a thatch. 
How high do you suppose one of these houses 
is? A man of average height could not stand 
erect in one, for they are but four or five feet 
high ! Often the breadth is no greater than the 
height. 



THE DWELLINGS OF THE DWARFS 45 

Let US imagine ourselves entering one of these 
little homes. We cannot walk in, but must get 
down on our knees. A small bush standing in 
front of a hole in the wall, is the door. We 
push this aside, and crawl in. How dark it is ! 
There is not a window in the house. Soon our 
eyes become accustomed to the darkness, and 
we examine our surroundings. The house con- 
sists of but one room. There are neither stoves, 
tables, chairs, nor furniture of any kind. Yes, 
there is a bed, but it is simply a pile of dry leaves. 
We are very much surprised to learn that the 
children, when quite small, are placed in tiny 
houses by themselves ! How would you like 
to live in that way? 

The Pygmies are, at times, quite frolicsome. 
They laugh, sing, dance, and imitate in various 
ways the things which they have seen others do. 
They have been known for a long time, but few 
white people had seen one of them until the sum- 
mer of 1904. During that year a missionary 
brought a number of them to the Saint Louis 
Exposition. This gentleman had visited the 
Dwarfs in Africa, and they felt that he was 



46 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

their friend. Yet even he had great difficulty in 
persuading them to leave their forest homes, and 
I am sure that they were very glad to return 
to them. 



WHERE THE CHRYSANTHEMUM GROWS 



Near the western shore of the great Pacific 
Ocean, and a httle to the east of China, is Japan. 




Fig. 19. —The Mongolia. 

Can you point to it on the map? The country 
consists of many islands, most of which are very 
small. Let us imagine that we are making a 

47 



48 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



journey to that far-away land. We leave San 
Francisco on the great steamship, Mongolia, 
and after traveling over the blue waters for about 
three weeks we reach Yokohama, the great sea- 
port of Japan. The Mongolia is six hundred and 
fifteen feet long. If a twenty-story building 
were placed sidewise on the vessel, it would not 
reach halfway from bow to stern. 

After attending to our baggage we leave the 
wharf to look for a cab. A large number of men 

shouting and wav- 
ing their arms is 
gathered not far 
away. They are 
dressed in blue, 
and wear shallow 
oval hats. As we 
draw nearer we 
see that each is 
beckoning to the passengers and calling, "'Rik'- 
sha?'' '^'Rik'sha?" Jinrikisha is an odd name 
for a two-wheeled cart or carriage, is it not ? — but 
it is still more odd for it to be drawn, not 
by a horse, but by a man. The name really 




Fig. 20. — A Jinrikisha. 



WHEKE THE CHRYSANTHEMUM GROWS 49 

means man-carriage. It must be much easier to 
draw this small 'rikisha than that one which 
carries two people. 

The 'rikisha man agrees to take us about the 
city, so we get in. He steps between the shafts, 
and taking one in each hand he trots off, drawing 
the load as easily as your pony draws the dog 
cart. Hour after hour he trots on, stopping only 
when we ask him. Then we must hold fast, for 
the stop is so sudden that we are liable to be 
spilled out. 

Yokohama is quite different from the cities of 
our country. The buildings on both sides of the 
narrow streets are lower than they are at home. 
There are few horses and wagons to be seen. 
Men do much of the work that is done by horses 
in the United States. We see many 'rikishas, 
and occasionally a person riding in a sedan chair, 
for street cars are not common. 

Let us ride out in the country where farms are 
very small. Instead of seeing plows, harrows, 
and harvesters in the fields, we see men tending 
the crops by hand. Many rice fields are to be 
seen, for rice, you know, is the chief food in Japan. 



50 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



Patches of bamboo are common. The bamboo is a 
great friend to the Japanese people. It serves 
them for water pipes, for fan and umbrella mak- 
ing, even as material for furniture and houses. 

Strange to say, 
this good friend 
is used even as 
an article of food, 
for the young 
shoots of the 
bamboo are as 
tender as aspar- 
agus. 

The Japanese 
are very fond of 
flowers and near- 
ly always have 
them in their 
homes. Some- 
times their gardens glow with the brilliant hues 
of chrysanthemums ; sometimes they shine with 
the bright tints of azaleas, of red peonies, and 
beautiful blue irises. Sometimes the loveliest 
flowers are found in the orchards, and when the 






I 



Fig. 21, — A Bamboo Grove. 



WHERE THE CHRYSANTHEMUM GROWS 51 

cherry trees grow white with blossoms the Japan- 
ese children clap their hands with delight. As 
the breezes stir the branches the petals drift 
down almost like snowflakes. But before they 
have all been blown away their beauty is cele- 
brated by a festival in which old and young 
together rejoice in the feast of the cherry blos- 
soms. In our country cherry trees are planted 
for their fruity but in Japan they are planted for 
their blossoms. Is not this a beautiful custom? 

Very tiny are the houses. They, are usu- 
ally but one story in height. The roofs seem 
much too large and heavy for such frail walls to 
support. This one is thatched, as many of the 
roofs in the country are. The thatch is some- 
times of grass, and sometimes of straw or reeds. 
It is bound in bundles, and then tied to the 
rafters of the building. Then a man with a great 
pair of shears, such as we use for cutting hedges, 
trims the thatch. The roof is very thick and 
extends for some distance beyond the walls. 
Frequently the roofs are made on the ground, 
and then raised on bamboo poles. 

Of course much dirt collects on the thatch. 



52 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

Seeds lodge there also. Because of this we see 
grass and weeds growing on many roofs. Be- 
neath the eaves are troughs made of bamboo. 
Some of the roofs are tiled and some are shingled. 
When a roof is to be tiled, boards are laid on it 
and upon these mud is placed. The tiles are 
then pressed into the mud. Japanese shingles 
are much smaller than ours, and the carpenter 
uses bamboo pegs for nails. 

Here is the house to which we have been in- 
vited. Our" friends see us, and come out to bid 
us welcome, as we step on to the veranda. Little 
Kiku makes a low bow and assists us to remove 
our shoes. Kiku means chrysanthemum, for 
many girls in Japan are named from flowers. 
Are not wistaria and hyacinth pretty names for 
the dainty little maidens? The Japanese never 
wear their wooden shoes or geta, as they call them, 
in the house. You will understand why a little 
later. 

The door does not swing open as the doors in 
our houses do. It is a panel that slides back 
and forth, having a frame of wood and being 
covered with paper. The walls and the parti- 



WHERE THE CHRYSANTHEMUM GROWS 53 

tions between the rooms are of this same material. 
The panels are usually about three feet wide. 

The partitions between the rooms are arranged 
to slide in grooves made in the ceiling and the 
floor. Sometimes the partitions are of plain 




Pig. 22. — Kiku's Home. 



paper and sometimes they are ornamented with 
beautiful paintings. It may be a picture of 
Fuji-Yama, the sacred mountain, snow capped 
against a sky of cloudless blue. Or perhaps one 
sees soaring through the clear air birds of mar- 



54 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

velous plumage; or perhaps it is a garden with 
blossoms of violet^ of crimson, or of gold. Often 
these partitions are taken out, and the whole 
house is thrown into one room. 

If Kiku could step into your house, she would 
be much surprised to see the glass windows. In 
her home, and in many others in Japan, the win- 
dows are of paper. The windows are called 
shoji. They are much like the paper walls be- 
tween the rooms, but you notice that the paper 
is white. Paper of this color lets in more light. 
About two feet above the floor, in the shoji of 
some houses, there are pieces of glass. 

The Japanese are skilled paper makers. Even 
their tissue paper is tough and durable, of a finer 
quality than that with which we are familiar. 
Paper is used for window panes every day in the 
year, but on one special day it is put to a still 
more curious use. That is the day of the festi- 
val for boys. Almost every flagstaff in the 
^'Flowery kingdom'^ is decorated with paper 
fish, sometimes several feet in length, the gift of 
parents or friends. With wide-open mouths the 
fish wiggle and twist as they flap to and fro in 
the breeze. 



AVHERE THE CHRYSANTHEMUM GROAYS 55 

Our friends do not ask us to take chairs, for 
there is not one in the house. Instead, we sit 
upon soft white mats that cover the floor. Lit- 
tle Kiku sits very quietly with her feet drawn 
up under her, and her hands hidden in the wide 
sleeves of her kimono. 

Now you see why we left our shoes at the 
door. It would not do to soil these white mats. 
They are quite springy to the step, so there is 
no soimd of heels upon the floor in a Japanese 
house. The mats are six feet long and three 
feet wide, and about two inches in thickness. 
The size of each room is determined by the num- 
ber of mats that it is to contain. Would twelve 
mats cover a large or a small floor? 

Near one end of the living room you see a low 
platform on w^hich there are vases containing 
flowers. There are bright-colored flowers in 
nearly every room, for, as I have told you, the 
Japanese are very fond of them. 

In your home the same pictures remain on the 
walls for years. In Kiku's home they are 
changed frequently, and only a few are in sight 
at one time. A Japanese artist paints a picture 



56 HOAV WE ARE SHELTERED 

very quickly. He uses few strokes and does not 
show as many details as would one of our artists. 

Kiku goes to another room, and brings in 
tables — one for each person. You open your eyes 
wide in surprise, for the tables are only about 
one foot high. The white mats that cover the 
floor are our chairs. The maid brings in the din- 
ner served in dainty dishes. We have soup, then 
salad, and finally rice, tea, and wafers. The tea- 
cups are about the size of half an eggshell, and 
the saucers as large as butter plates. 

The tea is boiled over a little charcoal brazier 
called the hibachi (h! ba'che). These are the 
only stoves which the Japanese have in their 
living rooms and bedrooms. In the kitchen 
there is a sort of range for cooking. 

The hibachi may be a round or square box 
partly filled with ashes or sand and about as 
large as a cracker box. The teapot is placed 
on a three-cornered support which is pushed into 
the sand. The fuel consists of a few bits of char- 
coal. On cold days Kiku curls up beside one 
of these queer stoves and tries to keep warm. 

We keep warm by living in houses that keep 



WHERE THE CHRYSANTHEMUM GROWS 57 

out a great deal of cold, and by having hot fires 
in our rooms. When the people of Japan are 
cold, they put on more clothing. Would it not 
seem strange to attend a party where each one 
of the company sat on the floor beside his own 
stove? We might see such a sight were we to 
visit Kiku's home in the winter. 

Where are the beds? Kiku has never seen a 
bed such as the one in which you sleep at home. 
She is not accustomed to snowy sheets and soft 
fluffy pillows. In Japan the mats are the beds. 
See, the servant is putting all of the partitions 
in place so that there may be enough bedrooms. 
W^hat was the dining room a moment ago will 
soon be used as three bedrooms. Now some 
padded quilts are brought in. Some of them 
are spread upon the mats, and some are to serve 
as covers.' It is very little trouble to make the 
bed, you see. 

Look at those little wooden boxes, each cov- 
ered with a roll of cloth. You cannot imagine 
what they are for, I am sure. They are Japanese 
pillows. Over each is spread a piece of paper to 
take the place of a pillow slip. You will think 



58 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

the pillows very uncomfortable, but Kiku does 
not. She is wondering how we will enjoy sleep- 
ing in a Japanese house, for her parents have 
told her that our homes are quite different from 
hers. 

Even in the country, most Japanese houses 
have bath tubs, and every night each member of 
the family takes a hot bath, ^hmy of the bath 
tubs are round, looking a little like a half bar- 
rel. In one side of the tub is a charcoal stove 
whose fire heats the water. 

Not all Japanese houses are like this one. 
Some have walls made of plaster instead of 
paper, and some are made of lumber. Stone 
and brick are not very commonly used in build- 
ing. One reason for this is that there are so 
many earthquakes. 

The last sounds that we hear are made by 
the servant in putting up the shutters that 
protect the shoji. This is locking up the house 
for the night. We are soon asleep and dreaming 
of our home in America. 



I 



A VISIT TO CHINA 

China is a very old land. Its people are 
backward; most of them know almost nothing 
of the rest of the worlds and very little of their 
own country. This is not to be wondered at, for 
there are very few railroads in this country. 

The Chinese have not always been backward. 
They taught the world many things. They 
discovered how to make silk and they invented 
printing, the compass, gunpowder, and other 
things. These discoveries and inventions were 
made many centuries ago. 

In the fertile portions of China the population 
is very dense, for the farms are hardly larger 
than the gardens in our country. Nearly all 
the work on the farms is done by hand. There is 
a man cutting grain with a sickle as it was done 
thousands of years ago. After the grain is har- 
vested, women and children will pull up the 
short stalks that remain. They will carry these 
home, dry them, and use them as fuel. Farm 

59 



60 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

work is not well paid; the 'laborers usually 
receive about ten cents a day. 

Everywhere we see canals. Some are large, 
and some are small. We see many curious 
boats on them. People travel along these 
canals as commonly as we travel along roads. 
Many farmers take their produce to market on 
boats. 

Along the canals are houses within a few feet 
of the water. They are set up on posts, and 
are entered by means of short ladders. 

You know that in our country the farm- 
houses are scattered along the roads. They are 
not built in groups. In China the farmers live 
in settlements. There are sometimes wide 
stretches of country between them without 
houses. 

Usually the country houses are but one story 
high. Many very poor people build their homes 
of mud or of clay. Sometimes the frame of the 
house is of wood. To this, strips of bamboo are 
fastened, and mud is then plastered over the 
bamboo. Some houses have thatched roofs, and 
some are covered with tiles. 



A VISIT TO CHINA 



61 



Let us step into one of these houses. You will 
think it quite cheerless, I am sure. There are 
no carpets, for the floors are simply hardened 
mud. The partitions are made of strips of 




Fig. 23. — A Chinese Home. 



bamboo woven in and out, and plastered with 
mud. There are chairs, tables, and beds, all 
made of bamboo. 

In this house the windows are of paper, and 
have heavy wooden shutters. In many homes 



62 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

the windows consist of a lattice work of bamboo. 
Pieces of thin shell are tied into the spaces thus 
formed. 

There are no stoves such as we have in our 
homes. Here is a sort of box partly filled with 
sand. In it the fire is built. In some houses 
the stove is much larger^ and is of brick and 
plaster. People put on extra clothing when it 
is cold. They even carry tiny stoves in their 
sleeves, and they have a sort of foot lamp, also. 

The houses in the cities are larger and more 
substantial than those in the country. They 
are usually made of brick or stone. The roofs 
are generally covered with tiles. Often mats 
stretch across the street from roof to roof, for 
the streets are very narrow. These mats keep 
out the sunshine. 

There are no fine residence sections as there 
are in our cities. The hovel of the very poor 
man often stands beside the home of the man of 
wealth. 

In many cases the family of the merchant 
lives in the back part of the store. You can 
see some of the children observing you through 



A VISIT TO CHIXA 63 

the open door as you make your purchases. 
They think your clothes very odd. 

You do your trading by means of coins called 
cash. In the center of each there is a small 
square hole, so that they may be strung on a 
string or wire. It takes about twenty cash to 
equal in value one cent in our money. An ordi- 
nary purse, you see, would be of no value to you 
in China. 

Although the streets in these cities are very 
narrow, there is much business done in them. 
People hurry and push their way along, carrying 
goods on their backs or on poles which rest on 
the shoulders of two men. Here comes a man 
riding in a sedan chair, and there is another 
riding in a wheelbarrow ! In the city of Shanghai 
there are about two thousand wheelbarrows 
used for carrying passengers. Carriages and 
wagons are seldom seen in Chinese cities. 

Here is a barber carrying on his business 
right in the street. People mend shoes and 
even cook meals in these narrow, crowded streets. 

If you are to walk about in a Chinese city at 
night, it will be well to carry a lantern, for the 



64 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



streets are dark and dirty. The common street 

lights are candles placed in paper-covered boxes. 

We sometimes travel in ships, but om^ real 

homes are upon the land. Many of the Chinese 




Fig. 24. — Ridins: in a Wheelbarrow. 



have no homes upon the land. They live on 
boats or rafts. These floating homes are to be 
seen along some of the rivers. By means of 
ropes they are fastened to the banks so that they 
cannot drift away. 

On many of these boats there are tiny vegeta- 



A VISIT TO CHINA 



65 



ble gardens, and a few fowls. Here children are 
born, and here they grow up. Just think of 
spending your life on a boat or a raft! There 
is no yard in which to play. There is no chance 




Fig. 25. — House Boats. 



to wander through fields and woods, gathering 
flowers and nuts. 

There is a roof over a part of the boat to keep 
out the bright sunshine, as well as the rain. 
See, this little Chinese child is tied to the boat. 
This will prevent it from falling into the water. 
There is a child somewhat older with a barrel 



66 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

about a foot long tied to its back. What can 
be the meaning of this ? We are told that should 
the child fall overboard^ the barrel will keep it 
from sinking. 

It is said that there are one hundred thousand 
people in the city of Canton living in these 
house boats. Look at the map of China and 
find this city. 



FILIPINO HOUSES 

You have heard of the Phihppine Islands, I 
am sure. They are situated thousands of miles 
to the westward of California, and not far from 
the coast of China. Although these islands are 
so very far from us, they belong to the United 
States. 

In that land there are many cone-shaped 
mountains called volcanoes. At times fiery 
streams of molten rock pour down their slopes, 
destroying everything in their path, while the 
air is filled with bits of rock and dust hurled from 
their tops, and dense clouds of vapor form above 
them. 

At such times, as well as at many other times, 
earthquakes shake the region. So violently does 
the earth tremble, that trees sway to and fro, 
buildings rock, and often fall to the ground, while 
the people flee in terror. 

You must not think, however, that there is 

67 



68 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

nothing pleasant or beautiful on these islands. 
There are many things in that distant land with 
which you would be delighted. The Filipino 
children never wear mittens, and they do not 
skate nor ride in sleighs, for it is always summer 
where they live. At all times of the year the 
sun is almost directly overhead, for the Filipinos 
live in the torrid zone. The warm sunshine and 
the abundant rainfall produce great forests. 
Mountain and plain are covered with trees and 
plants such as most of you have never seen 
except in greenhouses. Great forests, in which 
the vines and creepers form such a tangle that it 
is almost impossible to walk through them, 
stretch for miles. 

In the cultivated portions of the country 
there are fields of tobacco, sugar cane, and rice. 
Most of the Filipino children can pick bananas 
from the trees whenever they want them, while 
over many homes the cocoanut tree waves its 
graceful leaves. 

The Filipinos have dark skins and black hair. 
Their food, dress, homes, and language differ 
from yours in many ways. Some of the people 



FILIPIXO HOUSES 69 

in that land are savages, and roam through 
the forests almost as animals do. They build 
no homes, and many of them have never seen a 
white person. Many of the Filipino children, 
however, go to school as regularly as you do, for 
there are a large number of American teachers 
on the islands. 

Probably you have seen bamboo used for 
fishing rods, but I presume that you would be 
surprised to see people using these slender poles 
in building their homes. The Filipinos use 
them in just this way, however. 

Bamboo is really a grass, yet in that land it 
sometimes grows to a height of fifty feet or more, 
and it may be six inches in diameter. 

A Filipino home is very different from yours. 
The houses are low, being seldom more than 
one story in height. The buildings rest upon 
four or more stout posts set firmly in the ground, 
the floor of the house being five or ten feet above 
the surface. If you were to enter one of these 
houses, you would do so by means of a short 
ladder instead of by a flight of steps. Do you 
wonder why people live in this way? It is 



TO 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



be'cause the ground is so damp. In the open space 
beneath the house, hogs, chickens, and tools are 
kept. The framework of the house is made of 
pieces of bamboo fastened together by means 
of rattan. You can see that the Fihpino car- 




FiG. 26. — Filipino Homes. 

penters do not make as much noise as our car- 
penters do, nor do they leave as many nice 
blocks about the new buildings. 

Often the walls of the houses are made of nipa 
palm. The walls are really nothing but mats 
made of nipa. When a man wishes to build a 



FILIPINO HOUSES 71 

house, he can make or buy as many of these mats 
as he needs. There is no danger of breaking 
the windows in such a house, for they are simply 
openings cut in the walls. Often there are 
shutters of nipa which may be raised or lowered. 

The Filipino does not shingle his house as we 
do, but you must not think that it has no roof. 
The roof is so well thatched with grass or palm 
that it will keep out rain for a long time. I 
must tell you another strange thing about these 
houses. The roof is made on the ground, and 
then raised on poles, and set in place. In order 
to keep the thatch from blowing off, bamboo 
poles are laid on the roof, and are tied down. 

Let us enter one of these houses. We climb 
up the short ladder, and walk in. The house 
consists of but one room. There are many 
houses like this one, but some contain several 
rooms. In one corner of the room we see a bed 
of hardened mud; this is not to sleep on, but it 
is the place on which the cooking is done. As 
there is no chimney, the walls of the house are 
covered with soot. 

You are wondering where the furniture is. 



72 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

These people do not think it necessary to have 
much. Those mats spread on the floor are the 
beds. The table is of bamboo slats^ and see^ 
tied to one of the legs is a game cock. Through 
the spaces between the slats which form the top 
of the table, bits of food fall to the floor, and so 
the game cock does not go hungry. The floor 
is not solid as it is in your home. It, also, is 
made of bamboo, placed with the rounded sides 
up. 

Such homes as this one are easily made, and 
are very cheap. You would not want to live 
in one of them, I am sure, but the Filipino people 
seem perfectly satisfied with them. Many of 
the people do not know that there are homes 
of a better kind. Houses of this kind do not last 
very long. Many are destroyed by earthquakes 
such as I have mentioned. In the late summer 
and fall terrible winds, called typhoons, sweep 
over the islands, uprooting trees and tearing down 
houses. In our country we call such storms 
hurricanes. 

Like China and Japan, the Philippine Islands 
produce a great deal of rice. The plowing and 



FILIPIXO HOUSES 



73 



cultivating are done by means of a water buffalo 
or carahao. This is a large awkward beast with 
flat horns about half a yard long. Usually the 
ground is covered with water when the plowing 
is being done, and when the men sow the seed, 




Fig. 27. — A Filipino Village. 

they wade in the water. Plowing and cultivating 
the rice fields is not the only work which the 
water buffalo do. They take the place of horses 
in drawing loads on carts. When not in use, they 
spend their time in lying in pools of muddy 
water. 



74 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

Now that we have seen something of the 
country, let us visit Manila, the largest city on 
the islands. Manila is built on both sides of a 
river called the Pasig. On one side of the stream 
is the old city. Here the houses are built, and 
the people live, much as they did three hundred 
years ago. On the opposite side of the river is 
tJae new city. This is much more like a city in 
our own country than is the old one. The houses 
are much better than those in the country, but 
they are seldom more than two stories high. 
Some of the buildings are of wood and some are 
of stone. On many of the older houses we see 
roofs of tile, but corrugated iron is used a great 
deal now. Roofs of this sort are not likely to 
fall off when earthquakes occur. 

Even in Manila the dwelling houses seldom 
have windows of glass. Instead, shells are used. 
About two hundred and sixty small shells are 
used in a single window. The shells are not 
transparent, but they admit a soft light which 
is very pleasant. In these city houses there 
are beds, but they are often of bamboo. You 
have seen cane-seated chairs. The mattresses 



FILIPINO HOUSES 75 

used on the beds are of just such material. The 
legs of the beds are placed in basins of water in 
order to prevent centipedes, ants, and other crea- 
tures from crawling up. A sort of roof is attached 
to the high bedposts, and over all a large piece 
of mosquito bar is stretched. 

In the homes of the wealthy Filipinos there 
is rich and costly furniture. The floors are of 
hard wood, and are beautifully polished. There 
are musical instruments, pictures, books, and 
such comforts and conveniences as are found 
in the best homes in our own country. 



IN THE LAND OF COCOANUTS 

If you were to sail southwest from the city of 
San Francisco for a distance of about four 
thousand miles, you would reach the land of 
cocoanuts. On all sides of the Samoan Islands 
stretch the blue waters of the great Pacific. 
From the fleecy clouds about the mountain tops, 
to the foam of the waves along the shore, the 
islands are dressed in a mantle of green. Winter 
never puts the laughing streams to sleep in this 
land, nor spreads his spotless robe of ermine 
over all, for here summer is always queen. 

There are several islands, but if they were all 
united in one, the area would be but a little 
greater than that of our smallest state. Can 
you name it? In ages past, these peaceful 
sunny slopes were rudely shaken, while fiery 
streams of lava flowed down them, and volcanic 
dust and ashes settled upon the land. 

But now on every hand we see palms with their 

76 



IN THE LAND OF COCOANUTS 77 

fanlike branches, ferns of various kinds, the 
cacao, breadfruit, banana and cocoanut tree. 
The cocoanut palm is one of the most beautiful 
of trees. It seems to love the restless ocean, 
for it always grows where sea breezes may play 
among its graceful, feathery branches. Many 
of the cocoanuts sold in our cities come from 
these islands. 

This is a land of contentment. Food is easy 
to obtain. The Samoans do not need to prepare 
for cold weather, for, as I have told you, they 
have no winter. There is no need of working 
from morning until night, so these island dwellers 
find plenty of time to rest in the shade of tropical 
trees, to swim in the clear waters of the ocean, 
and row over them in their canoes. They wear 
little clothing, and that of the lightest weight. 
Their brown skin glistens, for one of their 
curious customs is to rub their bodies with oil. 

Here are some native Samoan houses. As you 
see, they are made of grass and are cone shaped. 
Some of the houses are thirty or forty feet in 
diameter. Posts about six feet in height are set 
in the ground, in the form of a circle, and grass is 



78 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



woven about them. This forms the walls of 
the dwelling. In the center of the house is a 
post much taller than the others. It may even 
be a breadfruit tree. 









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iMP iTt .^_. ^^ 


fe»'^' 


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Fig. 28. — A Samoan Feast. 



The most important part of a Samoan house 
is the roof. It is made by laying poles from the 
wall posts to the central pillar. No shingles are 
laid on the roof, but it keeps out the rain, for it 



IN THE LAjSTD of COCOANUTS 79 

is carefully thatched with the long leaves of the 
sugar cane. Branches of the cocoanut palm 
are used to fasten the thatch in place. Such a 
roof will last for several years. You would think 
it odd indeed to see a family, when moving, 
take the roof of their house and leave the house 
behind. Our friends in Samoa sometimes do 
this. 

A native house is but one story in height, and 
it usually contains but one room. See the curious 
little windows the houses have. They are simply 
openings which may be closed by grass, woven 
like that in the wall. The woven grass, mat-like 
in appearance, takes the place of glass. It 
hangs down on the wall during sunny weather, 
but when clouds darken the blue sky, the Samoan 
prepares for rain by fastening it across the win- 
dow opening. 

Mats are the most valuable pieces of furniture 
in this, as well as in many other dwellings, and 
some of them are very expensive. They take 
the place of beds and chairs. What curious pil- 
lows these are ! They are simply pieces of bam- 
boo raised on short legs. Here are cups, pails, 



80 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



and other utensils made of the shells of the 
cocoanut. Are you wondering where the stove 
is? That hole in the earth just outside of the 
house is the stove. 




Fig. 29. — Interior of a Samoan Home. 



The building of a house in Cocoanut Land is 
not a very serious undertaking. In fact, it is 
frequently a sort of wedding celebration. When 
a newly married couple wants a home, the relatives 
and friends help them build it. With shouts and 
gay laughter posts for the walls and poles for 
the roof are collected. Grass, sugar cane, and 



m THE LAND OF COCOANUTS 81 

palm leaves are brought. The roof poles are 
fastened to the posts by means of the fiber of 
the cocoanut palm. No painting, plastering, or 
papering is done, and the house is quickly 
completed. 



LIFE IN A LOG HOUSE 

The bright September sunshine was filtering 
through the branches of the trees and falhng in 
golden patches upon the leaves, as a heavy 
wagon, covered with white cloth, and drawn by 
oxen, came to a stop on the bank of a river in 
northern Indiana. In the wagon was a family 
of pioneers. " For weeks they had traveled over 
mountains, through forests, and across prairies, 
and now at last they had reached the spot which 
was to be their future home. 

You may be sure that the parents, as well as 
the children, were happy to reach the end of 
their long journey. All helped in arranging a 
camp, for they could' have no other shelter than 
that afforded by the covered wagon, until the 
father could build a house. 

There were neither lumber nor brick yards in 
the vicinity, for this was in the year 1805, just 
a century ago. The country was new, and Indi- 

82 



LIFE IN A LOG HOUSE 83 

ana had not yet been made a state. The house 
must be made of logs, so Mr. Harrington went 
into the forest, the edge of which was but a few 
rods away, to cut down trees. Hour after hour 
and day after day his .ax rang out, while occa- 
sionally a forest giant fell to the earth with a 
crash. 

Wilber and iVnnette enjoyed these bright 
autumn days. They gathered cat-tails, rushes, 
and great bunches of golden-rod. They found 
clumps of hazel-nut bushes, tall hickory trees 
with their rough bark, and walnut trees with 
widespreading branches. When at the bidding 
of the frost the forest trees put on their brilliant 
autumn dresses, the children were as busy as 
the squirrels, gathering a supply of nuts for the 
winter. 

Wilber liked to watch his father cut down the 
trees, trim off the limbs, cut the trunks into logs 
of the required length, and notch the ends. When 
the logs were all prepared, they were one by one 
dragged by the oxen to the place where the house 
was to stand. 

There were a few settlers scattered along the 



84 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



river, the nearest a mile away, and the men now 
came to help Mr. Harrington raise the new 
house. A raising, which was quite an event in 
those days, meant putting up the walls of the 
house, and raising the rafters over them. 

Two logs were placed on the ground, notched 
sides up, parallel, and as far apart as the house 

was to be wide. 
Next, two logs were 
placed notches 
down, across the 
ends of the first 
two, so that the 
notches fitted to- 
gether. This was 
repeated again and 
again, until at last the walls were of the required 
height. The gables were made by building the 
end walls higher than the side walls. The logs 
were laid one upon another, each being shorter 
than the one just below it. The ends were 
cut slanting on the upper side, and the logs 
were fastened together by means of long wooden 
pins driven into auger holes. Now poles were 




Fig. 30. — The Home of Wilber and 
Annette. 



LIFE m A LOG HOUSE 85 

raised above the walls, forming rafters, and 
wooden pins were used in these also. 

The raising was completed before dark, and 
as Mr. Harrington could do the remainder of the 
work without help, his kind neighbors, after a 
hearty supper, started homeward. We employ 
carpenters to build our houses, but the pioneers, 
you see, were their own house builders. 

^' When can we move into the house?" asked 
Mrs. Harrington the next morning. ^^ Just as 
soon as I can put the shakes on the roof,'^ replied 
her husband. The shakes were made by split- 
ting short sections of logs into thin boards. 
They were used as we use shingles now. 

The first night after moving in, the family 
was obliged to sleep on the floor of rough boards, 
for there were no bedsteads. Mr. Harrington did 
not go to a furniture dealer as we would do, but 
built them himself. They could not be moved 
from place to place as yours can be, for they were 
nailed to the walls in the corners of the rooms. 
Indeed the walls formed two sides of each bed, 
while the other sides were made of rough boards. 
Across the beds, strips of deerskin were fastened 



86 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

and upon these were placed mattresses filled with 
dried grass. ^^Next fall/' said Mrs. Harrington, 
^^we will fill the mattresses with corn husks." 
Wilber's bed was in the loft. When he went to 
bed, he had to climb a ladder fastened to the 
wall. 

In the large room which served as kitchen, 
dining room, and living room, Mr. Harrington 
built a fireplace of stone, with a great chimney 
outside of the house. The fire in the fireplace 
furnished the only means of heating the' house, 
as they had no stoves. Fastened to one side of 
the fireplace was an arm of iron, so made that it 
could be swung from side to side. This was 
known as the crane. Attached to the crane 
were three iron hooks, and by means of these, 
kettles and pots were suspended over the fire. 
When Mrs. Harrington wanted to bake, coals 
were raked out on to the broad hearth, and a tin 
oven called a haker was placed upon them. 

During the long winter evenings when the 
snow lay deep upon the ground, and the wind 
whistled through the tree tops, the family gath- 
ered about the fire. How the burning wood 



LIFE IN A LOG HOUSE 87 

snapped, and how the flames roared up the 
wide chimney ! Sometimes the parents told 
stories, and sometimes they helped the children 
with their studies, for there were no schools in 
the neighborhood. Wilber used to dread to 
leave the fire, and climb the ladder to the cold 
loft, for although the cracks between the logs 
were chinked with thin pieces of wood and mud, 
the fine snow often sifted in. 

There were no polished chairs, tables, or 
dressers, in this log house. All of the furniture 
was rough and was made by Mr. Harrington. 
There were no carpets on the floors, and no 
pictures on the walls. The other homes in 
this, and in many other parts of our country, 
were much like that of the Harringtons. As I 
have said, the settlers lived far apart, but they 
gladly traveled miles in order to help one another. 
It was a long distance to the nearest town, and 
visits to it were made only when necessary. 
The whistle of a locomotive was never heard, 
and there were no telegraph and no telephone 
lines. There was no public library, and there 
were neither magazines nor newspapers in the 



88 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

home. The children never turned on the gas 
nor the electric light, for their only artificial 
light was furnished by tallow candles. Water 
could not be obtained by simply turning a tap, 
but was carried in pails from the spring, a few 
rods from the house. 

How would you like to live in such a home as 
that of Wilber and Annette? I am very thank- 
ful that you have the countless comforts and 
opportunities that you now enjoy, but I want 
you to know something of the hard work, courage, 
perseverance, and suffering, which these cost. 
For many of the blessings which we now enjoy, 
our thanks are due the brave pioneers who settled 
in the wilderness. Do not forget that some of 
our most useful and noble men and women 
lived in log houses. 



LUMBERING 

Have you ever spent a vacation in the woods ? 
Have you wandered through them in the spring 
in search of buttercups, anemones, and honey- 
suckles? Have you gone blackberrying in the 
summer? Have you gathered bright-colored 
leaves, and nuts in the fall? If you have done 
these things, I am sure that you love the trees. 

The breeze is the playfellow of the trees. He 
knows them all by name. He rustles the leaves 
of the hickory, oak, maple, and elm. He sighs, 
and sings among the slender, dark green needles 
of the pine trees. The long feathery branches 
of the cocoanut and date palm bow gracefully 
as he passes among them. 

In some parts of the world there are great 
prairies, where one may travel many miles without 
seeing a tree; while in other regions dark forests 
stretch for hundreds of miles. Can you give a 
reason for this? 

89 



90 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



We love the trees because of their beauty, 
and because of the peace and enjoyment which 
they offer. They are of great benefit to us in 
other ways also. 




EiG. 31. — In the Forest. 

The forests furnish us with a large part of the 
material which we use in building our houses. 
Just think of the long rows of wooden buildings 
which you have seen in the city. In the country, 
too, there are many houses and barns built of 
lumber. The work of cutting the trees and 
changing them into timbers, boards, shingles, 



LUMBERING 91 

and laths, is called lumhering. I am going to 
take you with me on a visit to a lumber camp. 

You know that some trees drop their leaves 
every autumn. These are called deciduous trees. 
Other trees remain green all of the year. These 
are evergreen trees. Both deciduous and ever- 
green trees furnish lumber. How man}^ of 
each kind can you name? In our country the 
pine, spruce, hemlock, and fir produce most 
of the lumber for building homes. 

When the frosts of autumn are painting the 
leaves of the oak, maple, and hickory in yellow, 
crimson, and gold, the work in the lumber camp 
begins. These lumber camps are far from towns. 
There are many of them in northern Maine, in 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Ore- 
gon, and Washington. Locate these states on 
the map. Here in the logging camp we find 
three large buildings made of rough boards. 
This one is the blacksmith shop, where the 
horses are shod, and the tools are repaired. 
That building just beyond is the mess house. It 
is the boarding house of the lumbermen. You 
will not find fine linen, silverware, and cut- 



92 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



glass on the table. The men use tin plates and 
cups, and steel knives and forks. There is 
plenty of food, but it is plain. 




Fig. 32. — A Logging Camp. 



Now we will step into the hunk house. This 
is where the men sleep. The house, you see, 
consists of one large room. A wide shelf running 
around the walls is partitioned off into spaces 



LUMBERING 



93 



called hunks. Sometimes there are two rows 
of them, one above the other. 

After supper the men gather around this 
great stove in the center of the room. For a 
short time they tell stories and sing songs. They 



i WKM 




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Fig. 33. — The Fall of a Giant. 

begin their work very early in the morning, and 
so they do not sit up late. 

The first thing done in the fall is to form the 
camp. Next, roads are laid out. The roads 
are made from the heart of the forest to some 
stream^ or to a railroad. After the roads have 



94 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

been graded, and made as level as possible, they 
are sprinkled. For this purpose a great sprink- 
ling cart is driven over them. After the water 
has frozen, more is put on. Sometimes there is 
a layer of ice on the road more than a foot thick. 

The workmen now attack the trees with axes 
and saws. There is a forest giant nearly ready 
to fall. A man is driving wedges into the cut 
in order to make the tree fall in a certain direc- 
tion. See, it is beginning to totter. The workmen 
give a shout of warning. With a terrible crash 
the great tree falls to the ground. What a short 
time it took the men to cut it down ! It has 
been growing for a hundred years. 

Now the workmen are cutting off the branches. 
They are not valuable for lumber, and it would 
be difficult to move the trees if they were left on. 

Here are men loading logs on to sleds. To do 
this requires much skill, for the logs might do 
great damage if they rolled off. Those heavy 
chains are used to bind the logs to the sled. 
Each teamster is anxious to haul a larger load 
than do his companions. Day after day the work 
goes on. After each heavy storm a snowplow 



LUMBERING 



95 



must be run over the roads to scrape the snow 
from the ice. 

As spring approaches, great piles of logs 
accumulate along the banks of the stream. 
When the sun unclasps the icy fingers of the 
frost king, these logs will be rolled into the 
water. The stream will carry them to the saw- 





^^ft^ .■ »• "*:'j^''.| 






■j»^^^^^^ - '-' '^ ^^MUj^Bji^jjiii^tKII^^^^^^M 


■■ 



Fig. 34. — Loading Logs on Sleds. 

mills far below. The mills are often located on 
falls or rapids. Why? Bangor, Auburn, Lewis- 
ton, and Augusta in Maine, and St. Paul in 
Minnesota, are so located. Find these placeSo 

Here are men marking the ends of the logs 
before they are rolled into the stream. With 
their axes the workmen cut out letters and 



96 now WE ARE SHELTERED 

figures of various kinds. Several lumber com- 
panies float their logs down this stream, but each 
company can pick out its own logs by means of 
its mark. Marking the logs is a little like brand- 
ing cattle, you see. 

The logs do not float to the sawmills without 
any stops. They lodge against rocks, and they 
strand in shallow water. In order to keep them 
moving as fast as possible, men called drivers 
follow them downstream. 

Driving is exciting and dangerous work. The 
men are armed with long poles. In one end of 
each pole there is a strong iron hook, by ineans 
of which the logs are pulled and pushed about in 
the stream. 

See ! There is a driver actually riding on a 
log as it floats down the river ! Now he springs 
from that one to another. How can he keep 
his footing? If you were to ask him, he would 
tell you that in the soles of his shoes there are 
sharp iron spikes which prevent him from 
slipping. 

Here is a place where some logs have lodged. 
How rapidly they collect ! On they come, one 



LUMBERIXG 



after another, and crowd against the upper side 
of the pile. Such a collection of logs is called 
a jam. 




Fig. 35. — A Jam. 



Now the drivers will have a hard piece of work. 
They must break up the jam as soon as possible. 
They wade out into the icy water, and clamber 
over the jam. Presently they find the particular 
logs which are holding the rest back. They pull 



98 



HOW WE ARE SHELTEKED 



at them with their hooks, but cannot loosen 
them. The pile is growing every minute. Some- 
thing must be done at once, so some dynamite 
is exploded in the pile. With a great roar the 




Fig. 36. — Logs going up Incline to Mill at Vicksburg. 

jam breaks up, and the logs start again on their 
journey. 

Near the sawmills are places where the lo^s 
are collected and sorted. These are called hooms. 
The logs are driven into a body of water joining 




Fig. 37. — A Log with One Slab taken off ready to be turned 
on Car. 



LUMBERING 101 

the mill, and then floated, one at a time, through 
a narrow channel from which they are carried 
by machinery to the great hmigry saws. 

One. end of the log is pushed against a saw 
which rapidly cuts its way to the other end. 




Fig. 38. — Squaring a Log. 

The bark and a little of the wood is removed. 
This, you see, makes the log flat on one side. 
The log is then turned and cut on another side. 
This process is repeated imtil the log is a great 
square piece of timber. It is then sawed into 



102 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



smaller timbers or boards. The slabs cut off 
to square the log are used in making lath. 

The lumber must now be shipped to the parts 
of the country where it is wanted. Sometimes 
ships can go up the rivers to the places where 
the sawmills are located. When they cannot, 
the lumber is shipped by rail. 




Fig. 39. — Ships unloading Lumber. 



Chicago is the greatest lumber market in our 
country. Indeed^ there is none larger in the 
whole world. Great shiploads are sent from 
the pineries near Lake Superior and the northern 
part of Lake Michigan. Locate Chicago, and the 
lakes of which I have spoken. 

The lumber district in Chicago is a very inter- 



LUMBERING 103 

esting place to visit. There are narrow streets 
on each side of which the lumber is piled 
high in long rows. Here much lumber is 
placed on cars^ and sent to smaller cities and 
towns. 

You know that trees contain a great deal of 
sap. Where do they get it and how? When a 
tree has been cut into boards^ they should be 
allowed to dry before being used. In the lumber 
yards the boards are piled so as to allow the 
air to circulate between them. Sometimes the 
boards are dried by means of artificial heat. 
This takes about a week only. 

When the saw cuts out a board, it is rough on 
both sides. You know that many of the boards 
that we use in building houses are smooth on one 
or both sides. Smoothing the boards is called 
planing. Have you ever seen a carpenter plan- 
ing a board? Most of the planing is done in 
planing mills. When a board is to be planed, it 
is run between two rapidly revolving rollers. 
These carry it to the planes. After being planed 
it passes between other rollers. As it comes out^ 
it is placed in a pile. 



104 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



There are great forests on the Pacific coast. 
There the trees are very large. In much of that 
region there is httle snow^ so of course the trees 
are not hauled on sleds. Great logs are laid 
on the ground in two parallel lines like the rails 




Fig. 40. — Logs in a Chute. 



of a railroad track. Across these^ short logs, 
hollowed out on the top side, are placed. 

The logs really form roads, and are called 
skids or chutes. Logs are placed on these, and 
dragged to a sawmill, a train, or some river. 



LUMBERING 



105 



Many logs are floated down the Columbia 
River, and some great rafts of logs are floated 
to San Francisco. 

In northern and central CaHfornia there are 
forests of redwood trees. They average three 




Fig. 41. — Cutting a Redwood. 



or four feet in diameter, while some are even 
fifteen feet. 

When the men cut the very large trees, they 
do not stand on the ground, but on a platform 
from four to ten feet high. They do so because 



106 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



the lowest part of the tree does not make very 
good lumber. 

There are few streams in that region large 
enough to float such great logs. On this account 
the sawmills are often in the forest close to 




Fig. 42. — A Train Load of Logs in the Sierras. 

where the trees are cut. The logs are generally 
loaded on to cars by means of donkey engines. 

In some parts of California^ the timber is cut 
so high up the mountain slopes that it can be 
reached neither by railroads nor wagon roads. 



LUMBERING 



107 



It is sent to the valleys below in a very curious 
way. A great strong trough of wood is built 
in the form of a letter V. It is called a flume. 
A stream of water is turned into the flume. 
The boards are dropped into the water, and are 




Fig. 43. — Boards ready to be Flumed. 

carried down very rapidly. In Fresno County 
there are several flumes, each of which is more 
than forty miles in length. 

In our Southern States there is still another 
timber belt. There the yellow pine is the most 



108 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



common lumber tree. There are nearly ten 
thousand sawmills in the Southern States. 
Pensacola and Mobile are important lumber- 
exporting cities. Can you find them on the 
map? 




I 



Fig. 44. — Boards going down a Flume. 



You see how important our forests are. If 
we are to have homes built of lumber, we need 
the help of many men, for we cannot go to the 
forest and get it. Name the different kinds of 
work necessary. 



LUMBERmG 109 

We have a great deal of timber in our country 
to-day, but it will not last always. The trees are 
being cut very rapidly, and many are destroyed 
every year by fire. We should take great care 
of our forests, and plant trees where others have 
been cut. Unless this be done, there will be little 
timber left when you are grown. 



HOW BRICKS ARE MADE 

In nearly every city there are long rows of 
brick buildings. Some of these are dwelling 
houses occupied by a single family, some are 
tenement houses .in which many families live, 
while others are hotels or business houses many 
stories high. 

Here by the roadside is some damp clay. It 
clings to our shoes. See how the wheels of the 
wagons roll it up as they pass along. Take a bit 
of it in your hand; you can mold it into any 
form you wish. It is from material such as this 
that the brick for our buildings is made. 

Thousands of years ago the people of Egypt, 
Assyria, Babylonia, and other eastern countries, 
molded clay into bricks and dried them in the sun- 
shine. Bits of grass or straw were mixed with 
the clay to bind the particles together. There 
was little timber in these countries, but there 
was plenty of clay. The climate is so dry that 

110 



HOW BRICKS ARE MADE 



111 



some of those ancient bricks have been preserved 
to this day. 

In Mexico, Arizona, Cahfornia, and other 
parts of the West, there are many dwelHngs 




Fig. 46. — An Adobe House. 



made of sun-dried bricks. Such homes are called 
adohe houses. Most of them were built when 
lumber was more difficult to obtain than it is 
to-day, but many of them are still inhabited. 

Most bricks are now made by machinery. In 
order to understand how the work is done we 



112 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

will visit a brickyard. The process is carried 
on in somewhat different ways in different places, 
yet it varies little throughout the world. 

As we approach the brickyard we see several 
tall chimneys rising above long, low sheds. We 
see men and boys moving to and fro, carts drawn 
by single horses, and as we come nearer we hear 
the sound of machinery. 

Here men are plowing. This loosens the clay 
so that it can be taken up in scrapers. We follow 
one of the scraper loads of clay to the foot of an 
inclined plane on which there is a track. A 
bridge is built over the track at the lower end. 
Directly beneath a hole in the middle of the 
bridge is a small car. The team draws the clay 
on to the bridge; one horse steps on one side of 
the hole, and one on the other; the scraper is 
turned over, and the clay falls into the car. 

When the car is full, an engine at the top of 
the incline draws it to the mill. Here the clay 
is crushed to a powder between a revolving 
circular platform of iron and two great iron 
wheels. Any chance stones, as well as the clay, 
are crushed in this mill. 



^^H 




^^^^H 


r^p^^^^,..:. 


HjJIJIIJj^lp 





Fig. 46. — A Car Load of Clay going to the Mill. 



i 



I 



HOW BRICKS ARE MADE 115 

In the bottom of the circular platform there 
are very narrow openings through which the fine 
material drops upon a wide moving belt. The 
edges of this belt are higher than the middle; so 
the clay does not fall off. The belt carries the 
powdered clay to a box in which there are large 
iron knives revolving. A spray of water falls 
constantly upon the clay. The knives mix the 
clay and water thoroughly. This process is 
called tempering. 

From this box the clay is fed into another, at 
the bottom of which it is pressed into molds. 
Each mold holds six bricks. The empty molds 
are sanded by machinery ; this prevents the bricks 
from sticking to them. As fast as the molds 
are filled they are pushed by machinery on to a 
table. A man with a trowel scrapes off any clay 
that may be clinging to them, and a second man 
turns them upside down over wooden trays. 
These trays are placed on carts and drawn to 
the drying sheds. Machinery carries the molds 
back to the press, where they are again filled. 

Now let us follow this load of bricks to the 
sheds. They are in long rows with roads be- 



116 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

tween just wide enough for the carts. The roofs 
keep off the rain and the bright sunshine. The 
trays containing the bricks are placed on frames 
or shelves. In each of these sheds there are 
more than ten thousand bricks. In eight or ten 
days the bricks will be dry enough to move, and 
they will then be hauled to the kiln. Here is a 
kiln being filled. It is a great oven rectangular 
in shape, but many kilns are circular. There 
are three walls of brick, leaving the oven open 
on one side. Watch, the men are just beginning 
to fill it. They pile the bricks up in such a way 
as to leave spaces between them, which allows 
the heat to circulate freely. When filled, the 
kilns contain about fifty thousand bricks each. 

When a kiln is filled, the fourth wall is built 
up, and the heat is gradually turned on until the 
desired temperature is reached. In about four 
days the heat is slowly turned off, for the bricks 
must not cool too rapidly. As the cooling also 
requires about four days, a week or more is needed 
to complete the process of firing the bricks. 

The very smooth bricks, which you have often 
seen in the front walls of fine houses, are known 




Fig. 47. — Filling a Kiln. 



HOW BRICKS ARE MADE 



119 



as pressed bricks. A finer quality of clay is re- 
quired for these, than for ordinary bricks. When 
the clay comes from the mold, it is in the form of a 
long bar. This has the same width and thickness 




Fig. 48. — General View of a Brickyard. 



as a brick, but may be fifteen or twenty times as 
long. This bar of clay is moved along by ma- 
chinery to a great wheel or cylinder havdng wire 
spokes. The distance between two adjacent 
wires is equal to the width of a brick. As the 



120 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

wheel turns, the wires cut the bar of clay into 
bricks. 

The bricks are now carried by machinery to 
a machine where they are powerfully pressed. 
They are then loaded on to small cars, and run 
into a dryer. This is a great metal oven; in which 
the cars remain for about twenty-four hours, 
after which they are run into a kiln. The firing 
requires ten or twelve days. 

Pressed bricks are much more expensive than 
ordinary bricks. This is the reason they are gen- 
erally used in the front rather than in all parts 
of a building. Such bricks are of many different 
colors. The pressed bricks made in Milwaukee 
are famous for their good qualities. 

Bricks are made in many parts of our country, 
and in other countries as well. In many places 
they are not made during the winter, because 
the frost cracks them while drying. In California 
they are made at all times of the year. Can 
you tell why? Pennsylvania, New York, and 
Illinois are the most important brick-making 
states. 

And now we are ready to see how a brick house 



HOW BRICKS ARE MADE 121 

is made. Bricks, sand, and lime are drawn to 
the spot where the building is to stand. Of 
course it would not do to make walls of loose 
bricks. They must be held firmly together, 
and for this purpose mortar is used. 

Here is a workman putting lime into a great 
box. He puts into the box two or three times 
as much water as lime. Then he puts in sand 
that has been screened, and with a large hoe he 
mixes the sand, water, and lime so thoroughly 
that the three substances are combined in one. 
The clothes of the workman are covered with 
white spots, for the mortar spatters as he works 
it. Now all is ready for the helpers who carry- 
mortar and bricks to the bricklayers. The 
bricks are laid in a thin coating of mortar. The 
workman lays several bricks in a row, taps them 
with his trowel, and scrapes off the extra mortar 
that clings to them. The mortar between the 
bricks is called the joints. The bricks are so laid 
that the joints do not form continuous vertical 
lines. Laying the bricks in this way is called 
breaking the joints. Is there any advantage in 
breaking the joints? 



122 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



As the walls grow, openings are left for the 
doors and windows. In large buildings the bricks 
and the mortar are carried to the upper stories 
by elevators or by means of ropes and pulleys. 




Pig. 49. — Early Home of Longfellow. 



The interior of a brick building is finished about 
as is the interior of a wooden one. Here is a 
picture of one of the oldest brick houses in the 
United States. It is in Portland, Maine. It was 
built in the years 1785-6. The early life of Henry 



HOW BRICKS ARE MADE 123 

W. Longfellow was passed in this house. Name 
some poem written by Longfellow. Although 
the building is not very large, the workmen 
were nearly two years in making it. Would 
you not like to see this old house? 



HOUSES BUILT OF STONE 

Houses made of wood do not last very long. 
The lumber slowly deca3^s on account of exposure 
to the weather. Many wooden buildings are 
destroyed by fire. ~ There are few wooden houses 
more than one hundred 3^ears old in our country. 
Stone is a very durable building material. When 
exposed to the weather, it decays much more 
slowly than does wood. Animals do not bore 
into it as they do into wood. Stone buildings 
are not destroyed by fire as wooden ones are. 
There are houses of stone in Europe that have 
stood for hundreds of years. Portions of Windsor 
Castle, in which the king of England lives, were 
built five centuries ago. 

Stone is very heavy to handle. On this ac- 
count it is not shipped as extensively as is lumber. 
Whenever possible, it is shipped by water, as it 
costs less to ship material by boat than by train. 
There are many kinds of rock, but only a few are 

124 



HOUSES BUILT OF STONE 



125 



used in building. The most important are 
granite, sandstone, limestone, marble, and slate. 
The work of digging the stone from the earth 
is called quarrying. Quarrying is expensive 
work, for the great blocks of stone cannot be 
handled without machinery. Sometimes the 




Fig. 50. — Windsor Castle. 



stone is found at the surface of the earth, and 
sometimes it is far below the surface. Stone 
quarries are not as deep as some coal mines, 
however. There are more than five thousand 
stone quarries in our country, and they furnish 
work to about seventy thousand men. 



126 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

You have heard of the ''granite hills of Maine/' 
and you know that New Hampshire is called the 
^' Granite State." There is much granite in 
other New England states, as well as in many 
other parts of our country. 

Granite was once in a melted condition. It 
was forced up from within the earth when 
in this state, and was afterward cooled and 
hardened. Granite is very hard and will sustain 
a great weight. It does not weather easily,, and 
it takes a good polish. Because of these qualities 
it is used very extensively in building. 

Some of the granite quarries of New England 
are located on small islands near the coast. 
Many of those on the mainland are not far from 
the water. This makes shipment cheaper than 
it would otherwise be. 

Granite is not found in layers as sandstone and 
limestone are. It can, however, generally be 
broken along lines known as joint planes. Holes 
are driven into the rock a few inches apart. 
Sometimes powder is placed in these holes, and 
the rock is blasted, but generally iron wedges are 
driven into the holes, and the blocks of rock are 
split off in this way. 



HOUSES BUILT OF STONE 127 

See, those machines hfting the great blocks 
of stone are called derricks. How easily they 
raise blocks that weigh many tons. The steam 
or electricity which works the machinery has 
greater strength than any giant in old-time 
fairy tale. Cranes swing the blocks around and 
lower them on to a vessel or a car. The same 
giant who works the derrick is laboring here, 
too. The blocks of stone are smoothed by means 
of chisels. If columns are wanted, they are 
turned in a lathe as is wood. Hard as this rock 
is, the polished surfaces are easily scratched. 
On this account the colunms are protected by 
cases of wood when they are shipped. New Eng- 
land produces more than one-half of the granite 
used for building in our country. 

You are all quite familiar with sand. You 
have seen it in the streets and in the fields. 
Every stream, as it journeys on its way to the 
sea, carries sand. The waves of every lake, as 
well as those of the ocean, are grinding rock into 
sand, and hurling the sharp grains against other 
rocks. The streams, the lakes, and the ocean 
are wonderful mills, and the sand grains are 
their tools. 



128 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

Take a handful of sand, and drop it into a 
glass jar partly filled with water. When the 
sand has thoroughly settled, you will find it 
arranged in layers. Now if you could change 
these layers into stone, you would have sand- 
stone. When the sand which every stream carries 
reaches the ocean, it settles to the bottom. 
The water carries a substance to the sand grains 
which binds them firmly together. It is not 
glue, yet in Mother Nature's hands it acts as does 
a magic glue. No man nor machine with all 
the power and glue imaginable could do this 
work. Indeed, it depends upon the substance 
which old Dame Nature chooses as to whether 
or not the rock will easily crumble or be worn 
away by running water. Other material is 
deposited above, so that in time the pressure on 
the sand is very great. This helps in changing 
the sand into stone. All of the sandstone that 
is now a part of the land was formed in this way, 
and was then very slowly raised above the water. 
Rock formed in this manner is called sedimentary 
rock. 

Sandstone is found in many states, but is 



HOUSES BUILT OF STONE 129 

chiefly quarried in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New 
York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Cahfornia. 
Locate these states. 

The ocean is full of life. Fishes of many shapes 
and colors swim gracefully about in the gardens 
of the sea. Upon the rocks are countless animals 
living within their shell homes. There are 
other animals, some of them very small, that 
build outside skeletons. After the shellfish, 
starfish, sea urchins, and many other animals 
die, their skeletons are slowly changed into stone. 
We see that even the tiny animals of the ocean 
furnish us with material from which we build 
houses. 

Limestone, like sandstone, is sedimentary 
rock. The movements which take place very, 
very slowly in the rocks of this wonderful old 
earth, lift some of the limestone above the sur- 
face of the water. Limestone is very widely 
distributed, but it is quarried chiefly in the 
Mississippi valley. There are many limestone 
quarries near the city of Chicago. Joliet, not 
far from Chicago, is nicknamed " Stone City.^' 

Limestone is used for other purposes besides 



130 



HO\y WE ARE SHELTERED 



house-building. Bricks and stone are laid in a 
material called mortar. This same material is 
used in plastering houses. Mortar is made by 
mixing lime, water, and sand. If the mortar 
is to be used in plastering, hair is mixed with it 




Fig. 51. — A Limestone Quarry, Joliet, 111. 

also. This holds the particles together. Lime is 
made by heating limestone in great ovens called 
limekilns. 

When I was a boy, school children did not 
use notebooks very commonly. Instead, they 





1 




s^^K^^^^H 


-? v« L ',W^- 


.- 


^^^^^HJ^B^^^H^B^^^^^^ '^^- -4rrs^^s^ -^i^SIB' - ' _ !-' 



Courtesy of the Vermont Marble Company. 

Fig. 52. — Marble Quarry at Proctor, Vermont. 



HOUSES BUILT OF STONE 133 

used slates. We did our number work and our 
language work on slates, and handed them in 
to be corrected. Slates are made from a rock 
called slate. It is composed of fine particles of 
clay. These have collected on the floor of some 
body of water, and have gradually been changed 
into a stone called shale. After a time, if there 
is much heat and pressure, the shale is changed 
into slate. 

Slate can be split into very thin sheets, and on 
this account it is often used on the roofs of houses 
instead of wooden shingles. These stone shingles 
are about one-eighth of an inch in thickness, 
from three to fourteen inches wide, and from 
seven to twenty-four inches long. Most of the 
slate used in our country is quarried in Pennsyl- 
vania, Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts. 

Our most beautiful building stone is marble. 
Marble is simply limestone that has been changed 
by much heat and pressure. It is of different 
colors, such as white, blue, and green. Marble 
is very durable, and takes a beautiful polish. 
Marble statues made hundreds of years ago still 
delight us with their beauty. 



134 HOW AVE ARE SHELTERED 

About four hundred years before Christ was 
born^ the Greeks^ who loved beautiful things, 
built the Parthenon of white marble. Beautiful 
marble has been quarried at Carrara, Italy, for 
centuries, and some of it has been shipped to 
America. We now have many marble quarries 
^f our own. Vermont produces more of this 
stone than does any other state. Find Rutland, 
Vermont, which is called ^^ Marble City.'' There 
are also quarries in Georgia, New York, Tennessee, 
Massachusetts, and California. 

It is said that in 1836, William F. Barnes 
traded* a horse, worth seventy-five dollars, for 
the land on which the marble quarries at West 
Rutland, Vermont, are now located. This land 
is now worth millions of dollars. 

At first, quarrying was very slow work. The 
blocks of marble were hauled by teams a distance 
of twenty-five miles, but in 1857 a railroad was 
built to the quarries. 

Let us look down into a quarry. This one is 
about three hundred feet deep. On the floor are 
machines moving very slowly back and forth. 
They are called channelers. They run on tracks 




Fig. 53. — Marble Quarry at Proctor, Vermont. 



i 



HOUSES BUILT OF STOXE 



137 



on each side of which they cut a groove about 
one inch wide. Sometimes these grooves are 
cut to a depth of ten feet. 

The saws that do the cutting have no teeth. 
They are of soft iron or wire driven back and forth 




Courtesy oftlie Vermont MarhlP Company. 



Fig. 54. — Marble Quarry at West Rutland, Vermont. 

by. machinery. Grains of sand are washed into 
the cut to take the place of sawteeth. The 
sand really does the cutting ; the saws only move 
it to and fro. The blocks are loosened by driving 
wedges into holes bored a few inches apart. 



138 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

Derricks lift the blocks out of the quarries. 
Cars haul thera to the mills, where they will 
be prepared for use. 

Whole buildings are not commonly made of 
marble. Steps, columns, and fronts, are often 
of this- material. Floors, also, are sometimes 
made of marble. 

A house built of stone means a great deal, you 
see. It reminds us of the formation of the rock, 
of the quarrying, of the cutting and polishing, 
of the shipment, and of the work of the stone 
mason. 



ARTIFICIAL STONE 

Probably you. have seen many beautiful 
buildings which were apparently constructed 
of stone such as is obtained from quarries, " but 
which were really built of stone made by man. 
Old Mother Nature makes stone very, very 
slowly. Perhaps she requires thousands of 
years to form a layer of limestone one foot in 
thickness. Man can make a block of stone a 
foot thick in a few minutes. Such material 
is known as artificial stone, or concrete. 

Concrete is not a new material, for the Romans 
used it hundreds of years ago. They did not, 
however, make the blocks hollow as they are now 
often made. 

In the manufacture of concrete, crushed stone, 
sand, and cement are thoroughly mixed. Some- 
times the mixing is done by hand, but it is gener- 
ally done by machinery. The crushed stone and 
gravel form the main part of the mixture. The 

139 



140 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

spaces between the bits of stone are filled by 
sand grains^ while the particles of cement fill 
the tiny spaces between the grains of sand. 
Sometimes the sand to be used is washed to 
free it from impurities. 

The mixture is shaped into blocks in iron molds. 
These are simply boxes without tops, the sides 
of which can be raised and lowered by machinery. 
The molds are, of course, of different sizes. 

While one man shovels the crushed material 
into the mold, another pounds it down with a 
sledge hammer. When the mold is about half 
full, a wooden box without ends, and as long as 
the mold is wide, is placed crosswise in it. The 
mold is now filled, the material being pounded 
down as before. When it is quite full, it is 
smoothed off on the top with a trowel. 

One of the workmen now turns a wheel, thus 
lowering the sides of the mold. Resting on the 
bottom of the mold is a block of soft,, wet stone. 
It does not seem like stone because it is so soft. 
This block is carefully tipped over on to a heavy 
board, and the wooden box taken out. This 
leaves a hole in the stone as large as the box. 



ARTIFICIAL STONE 141 

In order that the stone may dry slowly, it is 
put under a shed, or covered with straw or cloth, 
and sprinkled frequently for about a week. 
It is then allowed to dry in the sunshine for 
several days. 

Frequently the blocks of artificial stone are 
rough on one side, thus resembling natural 
stone that has been chipped. This effect is 
produced by placing on the bottom of the mold 
a form like that desired. The material, being 
pressed in on top of this, takes the proper im- 
pression. 

Besides the ordinary building blocks, much 
ornamental building stone is produced. These 
ornamental pieces are often used on the fronts 
of brick buildings. The ornamental work is 
first drawn, and the drawings then carved in 
wood. You will be interested in knowing that 
the carving is done in just the reverse order to 
that in which it will appear in the stone. 

After being carved the wooden models are cut 
into strips. The strips are fitted tightly together 
and placed on the bottom of a mold. After the 
material from which the stone is made has been 



142 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

pressed on top of the design, the block is care- 
fully turned upside down. Removing the strips 
of wood is a delicate operation, and requires a 
skillful workman. The design is. now carefully 
gone over, and all errors or imperfections cor- 
rected. The blocks now dry as do the others. 

In making the blocks of concrete for a house, 
each piece is numbered so that the builders may 
know just where each stone is to be placed. 
There, is no cutting in order to make pieces fit, 
and there is therefore no waste material. 

Artificial stone is stronger than brick, and more 
durable. As our supply of lumber is constantly 
decreasing, and as the quarrying and shipment 
of stone is expensive, concrete is becoming quite 
important as a building material. 



NAILS 

What a hammering and pounding goes on 
while a frame house is being built. Most of it 
is due to the driving of nails. Without these 
useful little articles, such wooden houses as many 
of us live in could not be constructed. The 
floors, walls, shingles, lath, and other parts of a 
building, are held in place by means of nails. 

To-day nails are very common and very cheap. 
You know that when your father wants some, 
he does not need to make them himself. Instead, 
he buys them at a hardware store. There was a 
time when all nails were made by hand. What 
a slow process it must have been. In the city 
of Birmingham, England, as many as sixty thou- 
sand persons were once engaged in this work. 
As the wages were very low, much of it was done 
by women and children. In the early days, nail 
making was carried on in many of the homes in 
New England. The nails, were made from iron 

143 



144 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

rods which were sold in bundles. Pieces of the 
right length were cut from the rods, and held 
in a vise while one end was flattened into a 
head. 

This method would not do. at all at the present 
time. Nails are now made by machinery in 
great mills. In some places the iron to be used 
is rolled into thin bars. While hot, these bars 
are cut into strips each as wide as the length of 
the nails to be made. A machine cuts the strips 
into pieces of the right length, and fashions a 
head on one end of each. 

Most nails are not of the kind just described. 
They are round instead of fiat, and are made of 
steel wire. The wire is in great coils which is 
unwound by machinery, and cut into pieces. 
The machine also points one end of each piece, 
and heads the other. More than a ton of nails 
is often made by a machine in a day. 

Whenever we build a house, we are indebted 
to the men who are working in the iron mines of 
Alabama, or of Pennsylvania, or of the Lake 
Superior Region, for steel wire is made from 
iron. But these are not the only men who help 



NAILS 145 

US, for the iron ore must be smelted, shipped, 
and refined. 

Many people build houses without the use of 
nails. The Eskimo uses none in his home of 
snow and ice. The Indian tepee and the hut of 
the Pygmy are built without nails. Our Japa- 
nese friends sometimes use wooden pegs, and I 
have told you that they were used in making 
log houses. In my grandfather's barn, I have 
seen nails of oak, that had been in use for twenty- 
five years. Name other things that sometimes 
take the place of nails. 



GLASS 

How many beautiful things we see from our 
windows every day. Probably you have been 
awakened by the morning sunshine streaming 
into the window of your room. Perhaps from 
this same window you have looked out upon 
garden, fields, or woods, when the whole earth 
was bathed in soft moonlight. Have you stood 
beside a window when the warm spring rain was 
falling, and the apple trees were sending showers 
of pink and white blossoms to the ground? 

It is not chiefly because of the many beauti- 
ful things which our windows enable us to see, 
that they are valuable. Think of living in a 
house without light » You would not want to 
endure it for a single day; yet for ages people 
had no windows in their habitations, and many 
do not use glass to-day. We need plenty of light 
in our homes, both for convenience and for 
healtho 

146 



GLASS 147 

I have told you of the Eskimo who uses a piece 
of clear ice for a window. You remember that 
in many Filipino houses, small pieces of shell are 
usedo What sort of windows do the Japanese 
people have? 

You may be surprised to learn that sand is 
used in the manufacture of glass. There is in 
sand a material called silica. This, when fused 
or melted with soda, and some other things, 
becomes transparent, and is known as glass. 
Not all sand is of the right kind for glass making, 
and on this account the factories are located 
near the places where the best sand is to be 
found. 

After the sand has been washed, burned, and 
sifted to remove impurities, it is placed, with the 
other materials, in a tank inside of a furnace. 
The temperature in the furnace is sometimes fifty 
times as high as that of the boiling point of 
watero Do you know at what temperature 
water boils? 

This high temperature causes the silica and 
other substances to fuse. After a time the tem- 
perature is lowered until the mass is in a pasty 



148 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

condition o Now a workman sticks one end of 
a long blowpipe into the glass, and twists it 
about until a large piece of the paste becomes 
attached to the tube^ Next he places the other 
end of the pipe in his mouth, and blows through 
it. As he blows, the mass of glass expands into 
a pear-shaped bodyo This he rolls upon a fiat 
piece of marble, and when it becomes somewhat 
cool, he heats it again, and the process is repeatedo 
Occasionally he swings the whole ma'fes over his 
head, holding one end of the pipe in his hands„ 
Gradually the pear-shaped mass changes into 
a cylinder. It grows until it is about as long 
as a man is tall, and perhaps a foot in diameter. 
After blowing again into the pipe, the workman 
puts a finger over the open end, and heats the 
glass. The expansion of the air breaks the closed 
end of the cylinder. By means of a cold iron the 
glass is cracked where the blowpipe is attached 
to it, and so separated from it. With a diamond 
the inside of the cylinder is now scratched 
lengthwise, and a cold iron is moved along 
the scratcho This causes the cylinder to crack 
along the same line. The glass is again placed 



GLASS 149 

in the oven, where it softens and begins to 
flatten. In order to make it perfectly flat and 
smooth, wooden tools are used. When this 
work is finished, the glass is cut into various 
sizes and shapes by means of a diamond. When 
curved lights of glass are wanted, blocks of iron 
of the same shape are used on which to flatten it. 
In the year 1608 some glass workers were sent 
from London to America, and the next year 
they began to manufacture glass about one 
mile from Jamestown, Virginia. Now there are 
about four hundred glass factories in the United 
States. More glass is manufactured at Pitts- 
burg than at any other city in our country. 
For what else is Pittsburg noted? 



FIRE AND ITS USES 

When the biting winds of winter are driving 
the snow before them^ and streams and lakes 
are sealed with ice, our homes are cozy and 
warm because of the fires in them. Like many 
other things that we enjoy, we are so accus- 
tomed to fire that we do not realize how much 
it means to us. It is one of our greatest bless- 
ings, however, and without it our lives would 
be very different from, what they now are. 
If you were in some forest without matches, 
how would you make a fire, and how would you 
cook by means of it, if you did discover how to 
make fire? This is a problem which people 
were a long, long time in solving. How long ago 
man discovered how to produce fire, and how he 
came to make the discovery, no one knows. 
Seeing sparks produced by striking two stones 
together may have suggested the idea, or 
rubbing one piece of wood upon another until 

150 



FIRE AND ITS USES - 151 

they ignited may have led to it. At any rate 
it was one of the greatest discoveries ever made. 

A very old method of obtaining fire is rapidly 
to whirl a small sticky one end of which is in 
a hole in a larger piece of wood, between the 
palms of the hands. Underneath the hole, very- 
fine, dry material is placed. Sometimes fire can 
be produced by this means in a few seconds, 
and at other times one or even two minutes are 
required. Compare this with the time required 
when a match is used. 

Another way of producing fire is to take a 
piece of bamboo and split it into two half cylinders. 
Across the edge of one of these the sharp edge 
of another piece of the same material is rubbed 
rapidly, very much as one would handle a saw. 
On this account the process is sometimes called 
sawing. 

The Moros, who live in the Philippine Islands, 
carry their fire-making apparatus, which con- 
sists of a piece of bamboo, a bit of china, and 
some tinder, in a case of bamboo. When fire 
is wanted, the bamboo is held in the left hand 
in an upright position, while with the right, it 



152 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

is struck slanting blows with the china. In this 
way sparks are produced which light the tinder. 

No doubt you have seen sparks fly from be- 
neath the feet of horses when they were traveling 
on a stony road^ or on a paved street. Sparks 
may be produced by striking a piece of flint 
against a piece of rock containing iron. By 
carrying pieces of these rocks with them^ people 
had a means of making fire. This led to the use 
of the flint and steely which were found in the 
homes of the early settlers in this country. 

In order to make the starting of the fire as 
easy as possible, some very dry material, called 
tinder was carried in a small tin box called a 
tinder box. Sometimes small pieces of wood 
called spunks were carried in the box. These 
were tipped with sulphur, and the sparks would 
light them quite readily. When men went on 
a journey, they carried the flint, steel, and tinder 
in a bag of deerskin. 

You can. see from this how difficult it was to 
obtain fire in the past. It is no wonder that 
some people worshiped it, and that fires were 
kept burning for months and even years at a 



FIRE AND ITS USES 153 

time. Some of the Indians used to bury the 
fire-making apparatus with their dead^ for they 
beheved that they would need it in the fife to 
come. 

In early times people naturally used wood as 
a fuel^ as it was found in so many places, and 
burned readily. Partly because of the need of 
fuel, people followed streams when traveling in 
a prairie country. Why is timber usually found 
along rivers? 

Primitive people built their fires on the ground, 
sometimes inside the tent or hut, and sometimes 
outside. These fires took the place of stoves, and 
here the cooking was done. At night all sat 
around the fire while the burning logs snapped, 
and the smoke and flame rose upward into the 
tree tops. What strange shadows danced among 
the trees, and upon the surface of the stream 
just beyond the firelight. When the fire got 
low, the shadows crept closer to it, and when it 
brightened up again, they retreated. Even more 
wonderful were the things seen in the fire itself. 
Birds and animals, and human forms and faces, 
appeared and disappeared in the changing fire- 



154 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

light. It is no wonder that the children of the 
forest were superstitious. 

By and by people improved upon the camp- 
fire by building the fireplace and the chimney. 
This made it possible to have a fire in the house 
without smoke, and it also made cooking much 
easier. The fireplaces were so deep and wide 
that very large pieces of wood could be placed 
in them. Often the fire would last all night. 

It is not very long since stoves came into 
general use. At first many people were afraid 
of them, but they soon saw their great value. 
A stove requires much less fuel than a fireplace. 
It gives out more heat, and is very much more 
convenient for baking and cooking. 

In time man found that coal, which was once 
wood, could be used as fuel. This was very im- 
portant, for coal last^ longer than wood, makes 
a hotter fire, and is found in many places where 
wood is scarce. The use of coal makes it easy 
to heat large houses by means of furnaces. In 
another place I will tell you about the formation 
and mining of coal. 

When your great-grandfathers were patiently 



FIRE AND ITS USES 155 

making fire by means of the flint and steel, they 
did not dream that you would be able to produce 
a hot fire in an instant by simply igniting a stream 
of gas. No carrying of wood or coal, no arrang- 
ing of kindling, no emptying of ashes, yet many 
men work in various ways, and in various places, 
in order that you may be able to enjoy this 
wonderful fire. 

Wood, coal, and gas are not the only kinds of 
fuel used. Name others with which you are 
familiar. In Iowa and Nebraska bright yellow 
ears of corn are sometimes burned. Little timber 
grows there, and when corn is very cheap, it does 
not pay to ship it to market. In China the very 
poor people collect weeds in the fields, and by 
the roadsides, which are dried and used as fuel. 
The kind of fuel used depends largely upon what 
can be obtained most cheaply. What do you 
burn in your home, and where does it come 
from ? 

A fire is one of the most important things in 
a house. How comfortless a home would be 
without one in winter. When people are shiver- 
ing with cold, they find it very difficult to read, 



156 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

study; sew, or do many other things. Much of 
our civihzation is due to fire. When man is 
without fire, he must eat his food raw as savages 
do. This is both degrading and unhealthful. 
Because of fire it is possible to take long journeys 
into regions where food cannot be obtained, 
for cooked and canned food can be preserved for 
a long time. I think you will agree that fire is 
one of our greatest blessings. 



HOW COAL IS MADE AND MINED 

The air was filled with whirling^ dancing snow- 
flakes. All day they had been fluttering down 
from the gray sky. They spread a soft white 
mantle over the fields^ hiding all of the rough 
places. The apple trees, stretching out their 
leafless branches, looked dim and shadowy. 

Uncle George laid down his book and put a 
fresh supply of coal in the grate. Then he looked 
out into the blinding storm. ^'I declare/' said 
he, ^^I hope that everybody in the village has 
coal enough to last until this blizzard is over. 
It would be rather serious to be without fuel 
just now.'' 

'^ Where does our coal come from?" asked 
Herbert. 

^'This coal came from the eastern part of Penn- 
sylvania," replied his* uncle, turning to a map 
which hung on the wall. ''It is called hard or 
anthracite coal. Most of it is shipped from the 

157 



158 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

cities of Wilkesbarre and Scranton. Soft or 
hituminous coal is mined in many states.'' 

^'How is coal formed?" asked Foster. 

'^Long ages ago/' said Uncle George, ^Hhis 
country looked very different from what it does 
to-day. There were great marshes and swamps 
where now there are none. In the marshes were 
gloomy forests. There were ferns many feet in 
height. Great vines stretched from tree to tree, 
and creepers covered the ground. No human 
eyes ever saw- these dark forests, with their thick 
undergrowth, for inan had not then appeared 
upon the earth. 

"As the trees and other plants died, they fell 
into the marshes. In time a great deal of vege- 
tation accumulated. Gradually it was covered 
with mud brought to the marshes by the slowly 
flowing streams. The mud pressed upon the 
vegetation and hardened it somewhat. In this 
way it was changed into a substance called 
peat. 

^^ There is peat in the old marsh on the north 
end of the farm," continued Uncle George. 
''Many extensive peat beds are found in our 



HOW COAL IS MADE AND MINED 159 

country, in Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Russia, 
and other parts of the world." 

^'Is peat used for anything?'' asked Foster. 

^^Yes," replied his uncle, ^^peat is used as a 
fuel. Many people in Ireland burn nothing else. 
The peat is cut out of the bogs in blocks. They 
are then dried and sometimes pressed. As the 
peat is obtained near the surface of the earth, 
it is not very expensive to dig it. 

^' The layers of mud which bury the peat deeper 
and deeper in the swamps, change it more and 
more. In time it becomes a very soft brown 
coal called lignite. The next step in the process 
of coal making gives us the common soft coal 
called hituminous. After this comes anthracite 
or hard coal." 

^'Does it take a great deal of vegetation to 
make a ton of coal?" inquired Herbert. 

^^Yes," answered Uncle George. ^^ Perhaps 
it took a layer of vegetation more than one 
hundred feet in thickness to form a layer of coal 
six feet thick. 

^^ During the coal age there were many changes 
in the land. Sometimes the water was quite 



160 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

deep in the marshes. Then much sediment 
was brought in by the streams. At other times 
the marshes were very shallow, and a great deal 
of vegetation grew in them. In time the sedi- 
ment became rock, and the vegetation was changed 
into coal. Therefore the miners find layers 
of coal between layers of rock. 

"This bright, shining coal, you see, is simply 
vegetation which grew long ages ago. Sometimes 
the imprint of a leaf may clearly be seen in it. 
In some places miners find stumps of trees which 
have been changed into coal." 

"Have people always used coal as fuel?'^ 
asked Foster. 

"No," replied his uncle. "It has been used 
but a few hundred years. At first many were 
afraid to burn it." 

"I don't see why they were afraid," said Her- 
bert. "Perhaps they thought that it would 
explode," said Foster. 

"It was thought that the smoke poisoned the 
air," said Uncle George. "Indeed, King Edward I 
of England ordered that all buildings from which 
coal smoke was seen to issue, were to be destroyed. 



HOW COAL IS MADE AND MINED 161 

He even made the burning of coal an offense 
punishable by death. 

^^In time this foolish order was changed, yet 
people were not free to do as they wished. In 
the great city of London coal could not be burned 
during the time that Parliament was sitting. 
Many of the members came from the country 
where coal was not used, and it was thought 
that the smoke would make them sick.'' 

^^I know where London is/' said Foster, point- 
ing to it on the map. ^^It is the largest city in 
England/' added Herbert. 

''Yes/' added Uncle George, ''and it is the 
largest city in the world. 

"These ideas about the use of coal seem very 
strange to us. There were many others equally 
strange. For a long time the ladies who belonged 
to the higher classes of society in England refused 
to enter homes in which coal was used. Many 
would eat no food cooked by means of it. 

"Coal was first mined in our country about one 
hundred years ago. In 1814 twenty-two tons 
of anthracite coal were produced in Pennsylvania. 
In 1822 the mining of bituminous coal began." 



162 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



''I wish that I could visit a coal mine/' said 
Herbert. '^It must be fun to work in one/' 
put in Foster. 

''Coal mining/' replied their uncle, ''is both 
hard and dangerous work. It is anything but 

pleasure, you may 
be sure. In our 
country alone, 
about five hun- 
dred thousand 
men and boys 
spend a large part 
of their lives in 
deep, dark, mines. 
They have much 
less time than you 
have to enjoy the 
sunshine, flowers, 
brooks, trees, and 

EiG. 55.— A View in a Coal Mine. birds. These work- 
ers supply us with coal. We use it in our homes 
and factories. It carries us across continents 
and oceans. 

"The work of coal mining is carried on in 




HOW COAL IS MADE AND MINED 163 

different ways/' continued Uncle George. ^'In 
some places streams have cut their channels 
close to the layers of coal. A horizontal tunnel 
called a drift can then be cut from the valley 
into the earth, where the coal is deposited. The 
coal can then be brought out through such drifts. 

^' Where the coal is very deeply buried, this 
cannot be done. An opening must then be dug 
from the surface straight down to the coal. 
Such an opening is called a shaft. 

^'When the shaft reaches the coal, the miners 
cut horizontal drifts as they follow up the seams 
of coal. In a large mine there are many miles 
of these tunnels. 

'^To enter such a mine we must climb into a 
sort of elevator called a cage. Down, down the 
dark shaft we go, finally reaching the bottom. 
At first we can see nothing clearly. Flickering 
lights are moving about. We see shadowy forms 
that seem to be far off, and we hear strange 
noises. 

^'The lights are small lamps worn on the caps 
of the miners. Without these, they could not 
see to work in the narrow, dark passages. 



164 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

^' There is in mines a dangerous gas called 
■fire damp. When this comes in contact with a 
flame, an explosion follows. On this account 
a small metal case surrounds the flame of each 
lamp. You see the small holes through which 
the light comes. 

^^Look at this man. The chamber in which 
he is working is so small that he must lie on his 
side as he works. By means of an iron rod called 
a drill, he makes holes in the sides and roof of 
the chamber. In each hole he places a car- 
tridge. A fuse is lighted, and now we hear the 
cry of ^Fire!' Everybody hurries to a place 
of safety. Soon there is a loud explosion, .shak- 
ing down rock and coal from the roof and walls 
of the chamber„'' 

^^I should think that the whole roof of the mine 
might fall in/' said Foster. 

'^ There is some danger of that," returned his 
uncle, '^and on this account many large timbers 
are used to brace the roof. Many columns of 
coal reaching from floor to ceiling are left stand- 
ing, and these also are supports." 

''Who gathers up the coal after the explosion ?" 
asked Herbert. 



HOW COAL IS MADE AND MINED 166 

'^That is done by helper s,^^ replied Uncle 
George. '^See, they are placing the coal in that 
small car. When it is filled they will push it 
out of the chamber. Then the car will be drawn 
to the foot of the shaft by means of a mule. 
Machinery then lifts it to the surface of the earth. 
At the top of the shaft the coal is weighed, and 
a record kept on a tin ticket which shows the 
miner's number. 

'^In some of the mines the drilling is done by 
means of compressed air, and the cars of coal 
hauled out by electric motors.'' 

'^tlow much coal can a man mine in a day?" 
inquired Herbert. 

^^The average is about two and one-half 
tons/' replied his uncle. ^^ Sometimes a man 
mines double this amount. The miner is paid 
according to the amount of coal that he pro- 
duces. He pays his helper out of his own wages. 

^' There is much work to be done even after 
the coal is mined. The anthracite coal is put 
into a machine called a breaker. This contains 
revolving cylinders having strong, sharp teeth of 
iron. The coal falls through screens having 



166 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

openings of different sizes. The largest open- 
ings are about six inches across. These are for 
lump coal. Egg, nut, buckwheat, and barley are 
other sizes, not different kinds of coal. 

^' Mixed with the coal are pieces of slate and 
other impurities. They are picked out by boys 
called breaker-boys. 

/^Next/' said Uncle George, ^^ comes the ship- 
ment of the coal. Much of it is shipped by rail, 
and a great deal is shipped by water. Much 
coal is floated down the Delaware River on 
barges. Many of the barges are joined together 
to form a great raft. On the Great Lakes there 
are many ships, each of which carries frorn five 
to six thousand tons of coal. Such a ship can 
be loaded by means of niachinery in less than a 
day. 

^'The most important coal-producing states/' 
continued Uncle George, "are Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Alabama, and Iowa. 
Nearly all of our anthracite coal comes from 
eastern Pennsylvania, but a little is produced in 
Colorado and New Mexico. 

" These black lumps are a great blessing to us. 



HOW COAL IS MADE AND MIXED 167 

Coal is our common fuel in the home. Most of 
our manufacturing depends upon coal. Most of 
the locomotives that draw our freight and pas- 
senger trains from place to place burn coal. Coal 
is the fuel on the great steamships that go from 
continent to continent. So you see it is not 
strange that lumps of coal are often called black 
diamonds. Let us not forget that we owe much 
to the workers who dig this precious material 
from the earth.'' 



LIGHT 

How cheerful the hghts appear as they shine 
from the windows across the streets or fields on 
a dark night. By means of the light in our 
homes, on the street, in the stores, and in the 
cars, we have almost turned night into day. 
How gloomy it would seem to spend a single 
evening in a dark house. 

People have not always been able to light 
their houses. For a long time the sun, moon, 
and stars were man's only lamps. They shine 
now as they did thousands of years ago, and 
they light every land on the face of the earth. 

Have you ever seen fireflies? How often I 
have watched their lights gleaming through the 
woods and in the grass on summer nights. Often 
I have captured some of the little creatures, and 
placed them under a glass so as to see them 
light it up. It is said that the Indians used to 
tie fireflies to their hands and feet when they 
were hunting or traveling at night. 

168 



LIGHT 169 

One of the early means of procuring light was 
to stick a piece of wood or a reed into the burn- 
ing body of some fat bird. We would think 
this a very strange sort of lamp. Often the 
only light was furnished by a fire burning on the 
floor of the hut, or just outside the entrance. 

After a while people learned how to make 
torches. Pine knots, rolls of bark, rushes, and 
other things were used. They were fastened to 
the walls of the dwellings, and of course gave a 
very smoky light. Even the palaces of kings 
and queens had no better light than this. 

People had no matches in those days, so it was 
not a very easy matter to procure light. Some- 
times fire was obtained by rubbing two sticks 
together very briskly. Sometimes sparks were 
produced by striking a piece of flint against a 
piece of iron or steel. Have you ever seen a 
spark fly as a horse's hoofs struck against a 
stone ? These sparks from the flint and steel fell 
upon fine, dry material called tinder , thus setting 
fire to it. One hundred years ago the children 
in our own country were learning to read by 
the light of torches, fireplaces, and candles. 



170 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



Abraham Lincoln used to lie on the floor of the log 
house in which he lived, and read by the light of 
the fire. 

Long before Christ was born the people of 
India, Egypt, the Holy Land, and other Eastern 

countries used 
lamps. Of course 
they were not like 
those used to-day. 
They were made of 
terra cotta, stone, 
bronze, brass, sil- 
ver, and gold. Very 
wealthy people 
used precious 
stones as decora- 
tions for their 
lamps. These 
early lamps were 
of many curious 
shapes. They had 
no chimneys, and so were very smoky. There 
was no kerosene oil in use at that time. Those 
who could afford it burned olive oil. 




Fig. 56. — An Old-fashioned Lamp. 



( 



LIGHT 171 

Little by little lamps were improved. In the 
year 1783, a man named Argand invented a 
lamp having a chimney. That was a great 
improvement. 

About fifty years ago kerosene came into com- 
mon use. Before that time whale oil was used 
in lamps. In order to secure the oil, fishermen 
went on long, dangerous voyages in search of 
whales. Boston and Salem sent out many whal- 
ing vessels. Locate these places on the map. 

Many of the homes of our Eskimo friends are 
lighted by means of lamps made of shells, or of 
stones hollowed out. These lamps are filled with 
oil from the whale, walrus, or seal. Some hold 
not more than a half-pint, and others hold three 
quarts of oil. The wicks are of moss, which the 
Eskimo children gather during the summer. 

The Eskimo calls his lamp his ikhimer. It is 
also his stove. The igloo is warmed, and the 
food is cooked, by means of these simple lamps. 
. Candles, hke lamps, have been in use for a 
long time. At first they were very expensive. 
Even one hundred years ago a common candle 
was worth ten cents. They were generally made 



172 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

of tallow. A number of wicks, placed a short 
distance apart, were tied to a stick or small piece 
of board, so that they hung vertically. They 
were then lowered into a vessel containing melted 
tallow. When the wicks were 
drawn out, the stick was hung 
up, and in a few minutes the 
tallow cooled and hardened about 
them. This was repeated until 
the candles were of the right 
size. This process was called 
dipping candles. Have you ever 
Fig. 57!^^ Caudle- gathered rushes in a marsh or 
^*^^^' along a stream? People .once 

used rushes in making candles. The outside of 
the rushes was stripped off, and the stalks were 
dipped just as the wicks were. Such candles 
were called rush-lights. 

It was a great improvement when people began 
to make candles in molds. The molds were hol- 
low cylinders of tin just the size of the candles. 
A wick, having the upper end tied to a stick, was 
placed in each tube of the mold. Melted tallow 
was then poured in. When this hardened, the 




LIGHT 173 

candles were pulled out. I have seen my grand- 
mother mold candles many times. 

We are so accustomed to the use of matches 
that it hardly seems possible that people ever got 
along without them. When matches were more 
expensive than they are now, children helped 
save them by rolling up bits of paper. These 
were often of bright colors, and were called 
twisters. By means of these, light could be car- 
ried from one candle or lamp to another, 

I have told you how light was procured before 
matches were invented. The first matches were 
quite different from those in use to-day. They 
were pine splinters, about six inches in length, 
and sharpened at both ends. The ends were 
dipped in melted sulphur. Sparks were pro- 
duced by striking a flint and steel together. 
The tips of these matches were placed so that the 
sparks would fall upon them, and cause them to 
burst into flame. They were called brimstone 
matches. 

After a time there was an improvement. 
Matches similar to those just described were 
kept in small tin boxes. In each box was a 



174 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

bottle containing some sulphuric acid. When a 
light was wanted, a match was dipped into the 
acid; and a flame was instantly produced. On 
this account the box was called the instantaneous 
light box. 

The first matches that would produce a flame 
by friction were made in 1827. They were 
called Lucifer matches. The matches were drawn 
between a folded piece of sandpaper to light them. 
The rough surface of the paper produced heat 
enough to ignite them. 

Fifty years ago matches were more expensive 
than they are now. They were cut out by hand. 
This was a slow process compared with the .rapid 
way in which they are now made by machinery. 
A single machine can make millions of matches 
in a day. 

Matches are made from pine planks about two 
inches in thickness, and free from knots. The 
planks are cut into blocks the length of a match. 
The blocks are cut into thin strips, and the strips 
into splinters. The heads are put on to the 
matches, and the matches are placed in boxes by 
machinery. The United States, Great Britain, 



LIGHT 175 

Norway, Sweden, and Japan are some of the 
important match-making countries. 

Before people knew how to hght their houses, 
they could do almost nothing at night. Dark- 
ness put an end to work of all kinds. Having 
the light of a fireplace was much better than 
having none at all, but you would not want to 
read by such a light. How wonderful it is to be 
able to light our homes, our stores, our streets, 
by gas and electric light. 

Gas is of two kinds, natural and artificial. 
Natural gas comes from the earth. It has been 
known and used by the Chinese for centuries. 
It was carried in pipes of bamboo instead of in 
iron ones as it is in our country to-day. What 
a wonderful plant the bamboo is. 

Much natural gas comes from the coal and oil 
region in the eastern part of our country. Wells 
are put down much as they are when oil is wanted, 
and the gas is often piped for long distances to 
cities and towns where it is needed. 

More than one hundred years ago, a man dis- 
covered how to make artificial gas. This may be 
made by heating bituminous coal in great iron 



176 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

tubes called retorts. The gas that is driven from 
the coal by this process, is purified and conveyed 
to immense tanks, where it is stored. In the 
manufacture of another kind of artificial gas, 
water is used, and on this account it is called 
water gas. It is cheaper than coal gas, and is 
much used. 

Wonderful as gas light is, electric light is still 
more wonderful. It seems like a fairy tale to 
think of simply pressing a button and, flooding a 
room with light. Have you ever seen the lights 
along the street spring out of the darkness? I 
have been upon a mountain top looking out over 
a great dark valley, when suddenly, as if by 
magic, a thousand lights danced where before 
was darkness. The lights in a whole city miles 
away had been turned on. It was a wonderful 
sight ! Another wonderful thing about it was, 
that the energy that produced this magic light 
came from moimtain streams many miles from 
the city. 

Compare this method of lighting streets and 
homes with that employed in the past. Before 
gas was used most cities were dark at night. 



LIGHT 177 

Sometimes baskets made of iron were suspended 
at street corners. In these, pine knots were 
burned. Because of the Hght which we now 
enjoy, mills, factories, and trains can be operated 
at night as well as during the day. Our wonder- 
ful light makes it easy to read, study, play on 
musical instruments, and do countless other 
things at night, which it would be difficult to do 
without it. We enjoy many blessings which 
people did not enjoy in the past, and light is 
one of the greatest of these. 



PETROLEUM 

I HAVE told you how your great-grandmothers 
used to make candles. You remember that at 
one time candles used to furnish the light in all 
civilized homes. It is not very long since people 
began to use kerosene-oil lamps. Ask your 
grandparents about it. 

Long ages before men lived on this world of 
ours, the plants and animals, which to-day give 
us our supplies of petroleum and natural gas, 
lived and grew. When those plants and animals 
died, their bodies, in some cases, gathered on the 
floor of some body of water. Gradually, very 
gradually, they were covered by sand and mud, 
which, after many centuries, became rock. Then 
two wonderful things happened — things more 
wonderful than the work of Cinderella's fairy 
godmother. One of these marvelous things was 
that many of the rocks, at one time the bed of 
the sea, were raised high above the surface of the 

178 



PETROLEUM 179 

water, and some of them now stand as mountains. 
The other marvel was that through a very slow 
change in the bodies of the plants and animals, 
oil and gas were formed. 

Oil is found in rock. On this account it is 
often called ^^ rock-oil." That is what the word 
petroleum means. 

Perhaps you are wondering how a rock can 
contain oil. You know that a piece of wood 
that has been in water for some time is much 
heavier than it is after it has dried. There are 
small spaces between the particles of wood, in 
which the water is gathered and held. 

Certain rocks, such as sandstone and shale, 
are rather porous. That is, there is room between 
their particles for some liquid. It is in these 
rocks that petroleum is found. 

Below the rock containing the oil, there must 
be other rock through which the oil cannot pass. 
What kind of rock would prevent the oil from 
passing through it? Above the oil there must 
also be rock that will prevent its escape. Wells 
are sunk into the rock containing the oil, and the 
oil is pumped out. Sometimes it spouts out 



180 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

with great force^ rising many feet into the 
air. 

When the oil comes from the rock, it is usually 
dark in color. After it has been refined it is 
colorless. Kerosene, benzene, naphtha, and gaso- 
line are made by refining petroleum. 

Oil is lighter than water, and so will float on 
the surface of a pond or stream. In early days 
people used to place blankets on the surface of 
streams upon which oil was floating. When the 
blankets had absorbed considerable oil, they were 
carefully removed and wrung. In other places 
where oil was quite thick, it was skimmed from 
the water by means of boards. At that time peo- 
ple did not burn oil. It was used as a medicine. 

In the year 1852, a man named Kier distilled 
some petroleum, and used it in a lamp. It did 
not burn very well, however. 

Seven years after that the first oil well was 
sunk. That was in Pennsylvania. When the 
men quit work one Saturday evening, the 
well was sixty-nine and one-half feet deep. 
There was no oil in sight. The following day 
one of the workmen passed by the well and 



PETROLEUM 181 

looked in. To his surprise it was nearly filled 
with oil. That well yielded about twenty-five 
barrels daily. 

That caused great excitement. Other men 
drilled wells and pumped out oil. To-day the 




Fig. 68. — Oil Derricks at Los Angeles, California. 

oil industry is one of the most important in the 
world. 

When men wish to drill an oil well, a derrick 
is erected over the spot where they expect to 
find oil. An iron pipe is then driven into the 



182 



HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 



earth. Inside of this, a sharp steel instrument 
called a drill works. At the surface of the earth 
the pipe may be ten inches in diameter. At the 
bottom of the well it may be but two. Some- 
times oil is found near the surface of the earth; 




Fig, 59. — Oil Wells along the Coast, Summerland, California. 



sometimes the wells are two or three thousand 
feet deep. 

It costs a great deal to sink a deep well. 
Sometimes a single well will cost several thou- 
sand dollars. Many wells are drilled from which 



PETROLEUM 183 

no oil is ever pumped. They are called dry 
wells. 

In order to make a basin at the bottom of the 
well a few gallons of nitroglycerin are carefully 
lowered to the base of the tube. That is a very 
explosive substance. Next an iron weight is 
dropped into the well. 

Shooting the wells is very dangerous work. 
When the charge is lowered, the men hurry with 
flying feet to a place of safety. With eager 
eyes and drawn breath all await the terrible 
explosion which results when the iron weight 
strikes the nitroglycerin. High into the air 
rise bits of rock, water, and sometimes a great 
quantity of oil. For days or even weeks the well 
may continue to spout oil. Such a well is known 
as a gusher, 

A few years ago there was a great gusher at 
Beaumont, Texas. People traveled for miles to 
see the sight. It was like a waterfall turned 
upside down. In early days gushers sometimes 
poured down upon a river until a layer of oil 
was formed upon the water. Occasionally this 
caught fire, sending through the valley a great 



184 HOW WE ARE SHELTERED 

sheet of flame which devoured boats, houses, 
and everything in its path. 

Formerly the petroleum was carried to the 
refineries in wagons. Now great pipes often 
carry it for many miles. There is a pipe line 
three hundred miles in length, which extends 
from Olean to New York City. The oil is 
forced through the pipes by means of pumps. 

The refineries are often situated near some 
large body of water so that the kerosene can be 
shipped cheaply. There are great refiiieries at 
New York, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, and 
Chicago. Locate these cities on the map. 

Our country sends much oil to foreign lands 
in great oil ships. These vessels are really tanks 
of steel, and are called tank ships. Oil is 
pumped into them through pipes. A large ship 
can be filled in about six hours. 

The United States and Russia are the two 
greatest oil-producing countries in the world. 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Texas, and 
California furnish most of our oil. 



STORIES OF CALIFORNIA 

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COMMENTS 

North Plainfield, N.J. 

" I think it the best Geography that I have seen.'» 

— H. J. WiGHTMAN, Superintendent, 
Boston, Mass. 

"I have been teaching the subject in the Boston Normal School 
for over twenty years, and Book I is the book I have been looking 
for for the last ten years. It comes nearer to what I have been 
working for than anything in the geography line that I have yet 
seen. I congratulate you on the good work." 

— Miss L. T. Moses, Normal School. 
Detroit, Mich. 

"I am much pleased with it and have had enthusiastic praise 
for it from all the teachers to whom I have shown it. It seems to 
me to be scientific, artistic, and convenient to a marked degree. 
The maps are a perfect joy to any teacher who has been using 
the complicated affairs given in most books of the kind." 

— Agnes McRae. 
De Kalb, 111. 

"I have just finished examining the first book of Tarr and 
McMurry's Geographies. I have read the book with care from 
cover to cover. To say that I am pleased with it is expressing 
it mildly. It seems to me just what a geography should be. It is 
correctly conceived and admirably executed. The subject is ap- 
proached from the right direction and is developed in the right 
proportions. And those maps — how could they be any better? 
Surely authors and publishers have achieved a triumph in text- 
book making. I shall watch with interest for the appearance of 
the other two volumes."— Professor Edward C. Page, Northern 
Illinois State Normal School, 

Asbury Park, N.J. 

"I do not hesitate at all to say that I think the Tarr and 
McMurry's Geography the best in the market." 

— F. S. Shepakd, Superintendent of Schools, 
Ithaca, N.Y. 

" I am immensely pleased with Tarr and McMurry's Geography." 
«»CHAltLES De Garmo, Professor of Pedagogy ^ Cornell University* 



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